

























The War Terror 



THE WAR TERROR 

FURTHER ADVENTURES WITH CRAIG KENNEDY 
SCIENTIFIC DETECTIVE 


BY 

ARTHUR B. REEVE 

AUTHOR OF 

The Adventures of Craig Kennedy, Scientific Detective 
"The Adventuress" Etc. 


FRONTISPIECE BY 

WILL FOSTER 



i 


HARPER Iff BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 

NEW YORK AND LONDON 



0 <\ 

Repine- ' lent 



The War Terror 

Copyright, 1915, by Harper & Brothers 
Printed in the United States of America 


M-U 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 

I. 

Introduction . 

The War Terror . 




PAGE 

vii 

i 

II. 

The Electro-magnetic Gun 




ii 

III. 

The Murder Syndicate . 




22 

IV. 

The Air Pirate 




35 

V. 

The Ultra-violet Ray . 




45 

VI. 

The Triple Mirror 




55 

VII. 

The Wireless Wiretappers 




66 

VIII. 

The Houseboat Mystery 




75 

IX. 

The Radio Detective . 




85 

X. 

The Curio Shop . 




96 

XI. 

The “Pillar of Death” . 




107 

XII. 

The Arrow Poison 




118 

XIII. 

The Radium Robber 




129 

XIV. 

The Spinthariscope 




139 

XV. 

The Asphyxiating Safe 




149 

XVI. 

The Dead Line . 




161 

XVII. 

The Paste Replica 




172 

XVIII. 

The Burglar’s Microphone 




184 

XIX. 

The Germ Letter 




195 

XX. 

The Artificial Kidney . 




205 

XXI. 

The Poison Bracelet 




216 

XXII. 

The Devil Worshipers . 




227 


v 


VI 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 

XXIII. 

The 

Psychic Curse 


m # 

PAGE 

235 

XXIV. 

The 

Serpent’s Tooth 

4 

• 

245 

XXV. 

The 

“Happy Dust” 


• 

254 

XXVI. 

The 

Binet Test . 


. 

263 

XXVII. 

The 

Lie Detector 


. 

273 

XXVIII. 

The 

Family Skeleton 


. 

281 

XXIX. 

The 

Lead Poisoner 


. 

291 

XXX. 

The 

Electrolytic Murder 

. 

303 

XXXI. 

The 

Eugenic Bride 


. 

3H 

XXXII. 

The 

Germ Plasm 


. 

324 

XXXIII. 

The 

Sex Control . 


• 

334 

XXXIV. 

The 

Billionaire Baby 


• 

346 

XXXV. 

The 

Psychanalysis 


• 

355 

XXXVL 

The 

Ends of Justice 

. 

• 

368 


INTRODUCTION 


As I look back now on the sensational events of 
the past months since the great European War be- 
gan, it seems to me as if there had never been a 
period in Craig Kennedy’s life more replete with 
thrilling adventures than this. 

In fact, scarcely had one mysterious event been 
straightened out from the tangled skein, when an- 
other, even more baffling, crowded on its very heels. 

As was to have been expected with us in America, 
not all of these remarkable experiences grew either 
directly or indirectly out of the war, but there were 
several that did, and they proved to be only the be- 
ginning of a succession of events which kept me 
busy chronicling for the Star the exploits of my 
capable and versatile friend. 

Altogether, this period of the war was, I am sure, 
quite the most exciting of the many series of episodes 
through which Craig has been called upon to go. 
Yet he seemed to meet each situation as it arose with 
a fresh mind, which was amazing even to me who 
have known him so long and so intimately. 

As was naturally to be supposed, also, at such a 
time, it was not long before Craig found himself en- 
tangled in the marvelous spy system of the warring 
European nations. These systems revealed their 
devious and dark ways, ramifying as they did ten- 
tacle-like even across the ocean in their efforts to 
gain their ends in neutral America. Not only so, 


INTRODUCTION 


viii 

but, as I shall some day endeavor to show later, 
when the ban of silence imposed by neutrality is 
raised after the war, many of the horrors of the 
war were brought home intimately to us. 

I have, after mature consideration, decided that 
even at present nothing but good can come from the 
publication at least of some part of the strange series 
of adventures through which Kennedy and I have 
just gone, especially those which might, if we had 
not succeeded, have caused most important changes 
in current history. As for the other adventures, no 
question can be raised about the propriety of their 
publication. 

At any rate, it came about that early in August, 
when the war cloud was just beginning to loom 
blackest, Kennedy was unexpectedly called into one 
of the strangest, most dangerous situations in which 
his peculiar and perilous profession had ever in- 
volved him. 


THE WAR TERROR 


CHAPTER I 

THE WAR TERROR 

“I must see Professor Kennedy — where is he? — 
I must see him, for God’s sake!” 

I was almost carried off my feet by the inrush 
of a wild-eyed girl, seemingly half crazed with ex- 
citement, as she cried out Craig’s name. 

Startled by my own involuntary exclamation of 
surprise which followed the vision that shot past 
me as I opened our door in response to a sudden, 
sharp series of pushes at the buzzer, Kennedy 
bounded swiftly toward me, and the girl almost flung 
herself upon him. 

“Why, Miss — er — Miss — my dear young lady — 
what’s the matter?” he stammered, catching her by 
the arm gently. 

As Kennedy forced our strange visitor into a 
chair, I observed that she was all a-tremble. Her 
teeth fairly chattered. Alternately her nervous, 
peaceless hands clutched at an imaginary something 
in the air, as if for support, then, finding none, she 
would let her wrists fall supine, while she gazed 
about with quivering lips and wild, restless eyes. 
Plainly, there was something she feared. She was 
almost over the verge of hysteria. 

She was a striking girl, of medium height and 
I 


2 THE WAR TERROR 

slender form, but it was her face that fascinated 
me, with its delicately molded features, intense un- 
fathomable eyes of dark brown, and lips that showed 
her idealistic, high-strung temperament. 

“Please,” he soothed, “get yourself together, 
please — try! What is the matter?” 

She looked about, as if she feared that the very 
walls had eyes and ears. Yet there seemed to be 
something bursting from her lips that she could not 
restrain. 

“My life,” she cried wildly, “my life is at stake. 
Oh — help me, help me ! Unless I commit a murder 
to-night, I shall be killed myself!” 

The words sounded so doubly strange from a girl 
of her evident refinement that I watched her nar- 
rowly, not sure yet but that we had a plain case of 
insanity to deal with. 

“A murder?” repeated Kennedy incredulously. 
u You commit a murder?” 

Her eyes rested on him, as if fascinated, but she 
did not flinch as she replied desperately, “Yes — 
Baron Kreiger — you know, the German diplomat 
and financier, who is in America raising money and 
arousing sympathy with his country.” 

“Baron Kreiger!” exclaimed Kennedy in surprise, 
looking at her more keenly. 

We had not met the Baron, but we had heard 
much about him, young, handsome, of an old fam- 
ily, trusted already in spite of his youth by many 
of the more advanced of old world financial and 
political leaders, one who had made a most favora- 
ble impression on democratic America at a time 
when such impressions were valuable. 

Glancing from one of us to the other, she seemed 
suddenly, with a great effort, to recollect herself, for 


THE WAR TERROR 3 

she reached into her chatelaine and pulled out a card 
from a case. 

It read simply, “Miss Paula Lowe.” 

“Yes,” she replied, more calmly now to Kennedy’s 
repetition of the Baron’s name, “you see, I belong 
to a secret group.” She appeared to hesitate, then 
suddenly added, “I am an anarchist.” 

She watched the effect of her confession and, find- 
ing the look on Kennedy’s face encouraging rather 
than shocked, went on breathlessly: “We are fighting 
war with war — this iron-bound organization of men 
and women. We have pledged ourselves to extermi- 
nate all kings, emperors and rulers, ministers of war, 
generals — but first of all the financiers who lend 
money that makes war possible.” 

She paused, her eyes gleaming momentarily with 
something like the militant enthusiasm that must 
have enlisted her in the paradoxical war against war. 

“We are at least going to make another war im- 
possible !” she exclaimed, for the moment evidently 
forgetting herself. 

“And your plan?” prompted Kennedy, in the most 
matter-of-fact manner, as though he were discussing 
an ordinary campaign for social betterment. “How 
were you to — reach the Baron?” 

“We had a drawing,” she answered with amazing 
calmness, as if the mere telling relieved her pent-up 
feelings. “Another woman and I were chosen. We 
knew the Baron’s weakness for a pretty face. We 
planned to become acquainted with him — lure him 
on. 

Her voice trailed off, as if, the first burst of con- 
fidence over, she felt something that would lock her 
secret tighter in her breast. 

A moment later she resumed, now talking rapidly, 


4 THE WAR TERROR 

disconnectedly, giving Kennedy no chance to inter- 
rupt or guide the conversation. 

“You don’t know, Professor Kennedy,” she be- 
gan again, “but there are similar groups to ours in 
European countries and the plan is to strike terror 
and consternation everywhere in the world at once. 
Why, at our headquarters there have been drawn 
up plans and agreements with other, groups and 
there are set down the time, place, and manner of 
all the — the removals.” 

Momentarily she seemed to be carried away by 
something like the fanaticism of the fervor which 
had at first captured her, even still held her as she 
recited her incredible story. 

“Oh, can’t you understand?” she went on, as if 
to justify herself. “The increase in armies, the 
frightful implements of slaughter, the total failure 
of the peace propaganda — they have all defied civili- 
zation ! 

“And then, too, the old, red-blooded emotions of 
battle have all been eliminated by the mechanical 
conditions of modern warfare in which men and 
women are just so many units, automata. Don’t you 
see? To fight war with its own weapons — that has 
become the only last resort.” 

Her eager, flushed face betrayed the enthusiasm 
which had once carried her into the “Group,” as she 
called it. I wondered what had brought her now 
to us. 

“We are no longer making war against man,” she 
cried. “We are making war against picric acid and 
electric wires !” 

I confess that I could not help thinking that there 
was no doubt that to a certain type of mind the rea- 
soning might appeal most strongly. 


THE WAR TERROR 


5 

“And you would do it in war time, too?” asked 
Kennedy quickly. 

She was ready with an answer. “King George of 
Greece was killed at the head of his troops. Re- 
member Nazim Pasha, too. Such people are easily 
reached in time of peace and in time of war, also, 
by sympathizers on their own side. That’s it, you 
see — we have followers of all nationalities.” 

She stopped, her burst of enthusiasm spent. A 
moment later she leaned forward, her clean-cut pro- 
file showing her more earnest than before. “But, 
oh, Professor Kennedy,” she added, “it is working 
itself out to be more terrible than war itself !” 

“Have any of the plans been carried out yet?” 
*sked Craig, I thought a little superciliously, for 
there had certainly been no such wholesale assassina- 
tion yet as she had hinted at. 

She seemed to catch her breath. “Yes,” she mur- 
mured, then checked herself as if in fear of saying 
too much. “That is, I — I think so.” 

I wondered if she were concealing something, per- 
haps had already had a hand in some such enter- 
prise and it had frightened her. 

Kennedy leaned forward, observing the girl’s dis- 
comfiture. “Miss Lowe,” he said, catching her eye 
and holding it almost hypnotically, “why have you 
come to see me?” 

The question, pointblank, seemed to startle her. 
Evidently she had thought to tell only as little as 
necessary, and in her own way. She gave a little 
nervous laugh, as if to pass it off. But Kennedy’s 
eyes conquered. 

“Oh, can’t you understand yet?” she exclaimed, 
rising passionately and throwing out her arms in 
appeal. “I was carried away with my hatred of 


6 THE WAR TERROR 

war. I hate it yet. But now — the sudden realiza- 
tion of what this compact all means has — well, 
caused something in me to — to snap. I don’t care 
what oath I have taken. Oh, Professor Kennedy, 
you — you must save him!” 

I looked up at her quickly. What did she mean? 
At first she had come to be saved herself. “You 
must save him!” she implored. 

Our door buzzer sounded. 

She gazed about with a hunted look, as if she 
felt that some one had even now pursued her and 
found out. 

“What shall I do ?” she whispered. “Where shall 
I go?” 

“Quick — in here. No one will know,” urged 
Kennedy, opening the door to his room. He paused 
for an instant, hurriedly. “Tell me — have you and 
this other woman met the Baron yet? How far has 
it gone?” 

The look she gave him was peculiar. I could not 
fathom what was going on in her mind. But there 
was no hesitation about her answer. “Yes,” she re- 
plied, “I — we have met him. He is to come back 
to New York from Washington to-day — this after- 
noon — to arrange a private loan of five million dol- 
lars with some bankers secretly. We were to see 
him to-night — a quiet dinner, after an automobile 
ride up the Hudson ” 

“Both of you?” interrupted Craig. 

“Yes — that — that other woman and myself,” she 
repeated, with a peculiar catch in her voice. “To- 
night was the time fixed in the drawing for the ” 

The word stuck in her throat. Kennedy under- 
stood. “Yes, yes,” he encouraged, “but who is the 
other woman?” 


THE WAR TERROR 7 

Before she could reply, the buzzer had sounded 
again and she had retreated from the door. Quickly 
Kennedy closed it and opened the outside door. 

It was our old friend Burke of the Secret Service. 

Without a word of greeting, a hasty glance 
seemed to assure him that Kennedy and I were alone. 
He closed the door himself, and, instead of sitting 
down, came close to Craig. 

“Kennedy,” he blurted out in a tone of sup- 
pressed excitement, “can I trust you to keep a big 
secret?” 

Craig looked at him reproachfully, but said noth- 
ing. 

“I beg your pardon — a thousand times,” hastened 
Burke. “I was so excited, I wasn’t thinking ” 

“Once is enough, Burke,” laughed Kennedy, his 
good nature restored at Burke’s crestfallen appear- 
ance. 

“Well, you see,” went on the Secret Service man, 
“this thing is so very important that — well, I for- 
got.” 

He sat down and hitched his chair close to us, as 
he went on in a lowered, almost awestruck tone. 

“Kennedy,” he whispered, “I’m on the trail, I 
think, of something growing out of these terrible 
conditions in Europe that will tax the best in the 
Secret Service. Think of it, man. There’s an or- 
ganization, right here in this city, a sort of assassin’s 
club, as it were, aimed at all the powerful men the 
world over. Why, the most refined and intellectual 
reformers have joined with the most red-handed 
anarchists and ” 

“Sh! not so loud,” cautioned Craig. “I think I 
have one of them in the next room. Have they done 
anything yet to the Baron?” 


8 


THE WAR TERROR 

It was Burke’s turn now to look from one to the 
other of us in unfeigned surprise that we should al- 
ready know something of his secret. 

‘The Baron?” he repeated, lowering his voice. 
“What Baron?” 

It was evident that Burke knew nothing, at least 
of this new plot which Miss Lowe had indicated. 
Kennedy beckoned him over to the window furthest 
from the door to his own room. 

“What have you discovered?” he asked, fore- 
stalling Burke in the questioning. “What has hap- 
pened?” 

“You haven’t heard, then?” replied Burke. 

Kennedy nodded negatively. 

“Fortescue, the American inventor of fortescite, 
the new explosive, died very strangely this morning.” 

“Yes,” encouraged Kennedy, as Burke came to a 
full stop to observe the effect of the information. 

“Most incomprehensible, too,” he pursued. “No 
cause, apparently. But it might have been over- 
looked, perhaps, except for one thing. It wasn’t 
known generally, but Fortescue had just perfected 
a successful electro-magnetic gun — powderless, 
smokeless, flashless, noiseless and of tremendous 
power. To-morrow he was to have signed the con- 
tract to sell it to England. This morning he is found 
dead and the final plans of the gun are gone!” 

Kennedy and Burke were standing mutely looking 
at each other. 

“Who is in the next room?” whispered Burke 
hoarsely, recollecting Kennedy’s caution of silence. 

Kennedy did not reply immediately. He was evi- 
dently much excited by Burke’s news of the wonder- 
ful electro-magnetic gun. 

“Burke,” he exclaimed suddenly, “let’s join forces. 


THE WAR TERROR 9 

I think we are both on the trail of a world-wide con- 
spiracy — a sort of murder syndicate to wipe out 
war!” 

Burke’s only reply was a low whistle that invol- 
untarily escaped him as he reached over and grasped 
Craig’s hand, which to him represented the sealing 
of the compact. 

As for me, I could not restrain a mental shudder 
at the power that their first murder had evidently 
placed in the hands of the anarchists, if they indeed 
had the electro-magnetic gun which inventors had 
been seeking for generations. What might they not 
do with it — perhaps even use it themselves and turn 
the latest invention against society itself ! 

Hastily Craig gave a whispered account of our 
strange visit from Miss Lowe, while Burke listened, 
open-mouthed. 

He had scarcely finished when he reached for the 
telephone and asked for long distance. 

“Is this the German embassy in Washington?” 
asked Craig a few moments later when he got his 
number. “This is Craig Kennedy, in New York. 
The United States Secret Service will vouch for me 
— mention to them Mr. Burke of their New York 
office who is here with me now. I understand that 
Baron Kreiger is leaving for New York to meet 
some bankers this afternoon. He must not do so. 
He is in the gravest danger if he — What? He left 
last night at midnight and is already here?” 

Kennedy turned to us blankly. 

The door to his room opened suddenly. 

There stood Miss Lowe, gazing wild-eyed at us. 
Evidently her supernervous condition had height- 
ened the keenness of her senses. She had heard 
what we were saying. I tried to read her face. It 
2 


IO THE WAR TERROR 

was not fear that I saw there. It was rage; it was 
jealousy. 

“The traitress — it is Marie!” she shrieked. 

For a moment, obtusely, I did not understand. 
“She has made a secret appointment with him,” 
she cried. 

At last I saw the truth. Paula Lowe had fallen 
in love with the man she had sworn to kill ! 


CHAPTER II 


THE ELECTRO-MAGNETIC GUN 

“What shall we do?” demanded Burke, instantly 
taking in the dangerous situation that the Baron’s 
sudden change of plans had opened up. 

“Call O’Connor,” I suggested, thinking of the po- 
lice bureau of missing persons, and reaching for the 
telephone. 

“No, no!” almost shouted Craig, seizing my arm. 
“The police will inevitably spoil it all. No, we must 
play a lone hand in this if we are to work it out. 
How was Fortescue discovered, Burke?” 

“Sitting in a chair in his laboratory. He must 
have been there all night. There wasn’t a mark on 
him, not a sign of violence, yet his face was terri- 
bly drawn as though he were gasping for breath or 
his heart had suddenly failed him. So far, I be- 
lieve, the coroner has no clue and isn’t advertising 
the case.” 

“Take me there, then,” decided Craig quickly. 
“Walter, I must trust Miss Lowe to you on the 
journey. We must all go. That must be our start- 
ing point, if we are to run this thing down.” 

I caught his significant look to me and interpreted 
it to mean that he wanted me to watr u Miss Lowe 
especially. I gathered that taking her was in the 
nature of a third degree and as a result he expected 
II 


12 


THE WAR TERROR 

to derive some information from her. Her face 
was pale and drawn as we four piled into a taxi- 
cab for a quick run downtown to the laboratory of 
Fortescue from which Burke had come directly to 
us with his story. 

“What do you know of these anarchists?” asked 
Kennedy of Burke as we sped along. “Why do you 
suspect them?” 

It was evident that he was discussing the case so 
that Paula could overhear, for a purpose. 

“Why, we received a tip from abroad — I won’t 
say where,” replied Burke guardedly, taking his cue. 
“They call themselves the ‘Group,’ I believe, which 
is a common enough term among anarchists. It 
seems they are composed of terrorists of all na- 
tions.” 

“The leader?” inquired Kennedy, leading him on. 

“There is one, I believe, a little florid, stout Ger- 
man. I think he is a paranoiac who believes there 
has fallen on himself a divine mission to end all 
warfare. Quite likely he is one of those who have 
fled to America to avoid military service. Perhaps, 
why certainly, you must know him — Annenberg, an 
instructor in economics now at the University?” 

Craig nodded and raised his eyebrows in mild sur- 
prise. We had indeed heard of Annenberg and 
some of his radical theories which had sometimes 
quite alarmed the conservative faculty. I felt that 
this was getting pretty close home to us now. 

“How about Mrs. Annenberg?” Craig asked, re- 
calling the clever young wife of the middle-aged pro- 
fessor. 

At the mere mention of the name, I felt a sort of 
start in Miss Lowe, who was seated next to me in 
the taxicab. She had quickly recovered herself, but 


THE ELECTRO-MAGNETIC GUN 13 

not before I saw that Kennedy’s plan of breaking 
down the last barrier of her reserve was working. 

“She is one of them, too,” Burke nodded. “I 
have had my men out shadowing them and their 
friends. They tell me that the Annenbergs hold 
salons — I suppose you would call them that — at- 
tended by numbers of men and women of high social 
and intellectual position who dabble in radicalism 
and all sorts of things.” 

“Who are the other leaders?” asked Craig. 
“Have you any idea?” 

“Some idea,” returned Burke. “There seems to 
be a Frenchman, a tall, wiry man of forty-five or 
fifty with a black mustache which once had a mili- 
tary twist. There are a couple of Englishmen. 
Then there are five or six Americans who seem to 
be active. One, I believe, is a young woman.” 

Kennedy checked him with a covert glance, but 
did not betray by a movement of a muscle to Miss 
Lowe that either Burke or himself suspected her of 
being the young woman in question. 

“There are three Russians,” continued Burke, “all 
of whom have escaped from Siberia. Then there 
is at least one Austrian, a Spaniard from the Ferrer 
school, and Tomasso and Enrico, two Italians, 
rather heavily built, swarthy, bearded. They look 
the part. Of course there are others. But these 
in the main, I think, compose what might be called 
‘the inner circle’ of the ‘Group.’ ” 

It was indeed an alarming, terrifying revelation, 
as we began to realize that Miss Lowe had undoubt- 
edly been telling the truth. Not alone was there this 
American group, evidently, but all over Europe the 
lines of the conspiracy had apparently spread. It 
was not a casual gathering of ordinary malcontents. 


i 4 THE WAR TERROR 

It went deeper than that. It included many who in 
their disgust at war secretly were not unwilling to 
wink at violence to end the curse. I could not but 
reflect on the dangerous ground on which most of 
them were treading, shaking the basis of all civiliza- 
tion in order to cut out one modern excrescence. 

The big fact to us, just at present, was that this 
group had made America its headquarters, that 
plans had been studiously matured and even reduced 
to writing, if Paula were to be believed. Everything 
had been carefully staged for a great simultaneous 
blow or series of blows that would rouse the whole 
world. 

As I watched I could not escape observing that 
Miss Lowe followed Burke furtively now, as though 
he had some uncanny power. 

Fortescue’s laboratory was in an old building on 
a side street several blocks from the main thorough- 
fares of Manhattan. He had evidently chosen it, 
partly because of its very inaccessibility in order to 
secure the quiet necessary for his work. 

“If he had any visitors last night,” commented 
Kennedy when our cab at last pulled up before the 
place, “they might have come and gone unnoticed.” 

We entered. Nothing had been disturbed in the 
laboratory by the coroner and Kennedy was able to 
gain a complete idea of the case rapidly, almost as 
well as if we had been called in immediately. 

Fortescue’s body, it seemed, had been discovered 
sprawled out in a big armchair, as Burke had said, 
by one of his assistants only a few hours before when 
he had come to the laboratory in the morning to 
open it. Evidently he had been there undisturbed 
all night, keeping a gruesome vigil over his looted 
treasure house. 


THE ELECTRO-MAGNETIC GUN 15 

As we gleaned the meager facts, it became more 
evident that whoever had perpetrated the crime must 
have had the diabolical cunning to do it in some 
ordinary way that aroused no suspicion on the part 
of the victim, for there was no sign of any violence 
anywhere. 

As we entered the laboratory, I noted an involun- 
tary shudder on the part of Paula Lowe, but, as 
far as I knew, it was no more than might have been 
felt by anyone under the circumstances. 

Fortescue’s body had been removed from the 
chair in which it had been found and lay on a couch 
at the other end of the room, covered merely by a 
sheet. Otherwise, everything, even the armchair, 
was undisturbed. 

Kennedy pulled back a corner of the sheet, dis- 
closing the face, contorted and of a peculiar, purplish 
hue from the congested blood vessels. He bent over 
and I did so, too. There was an unmistakable odor 
of tobacco on him. A moment Kennedy studied the 
face before us, then slowly replaced the sheet. 

Miss Lowe had paused just inside the door and 
seemed resolutely bound not to look at anything. 
Kennedy meanwhile had begun a most minute search 
of the table and floor of the laboratory near the 
spot where the armchair had been sitting. 

In my effort to glean what I could from her ac- 
tions and expressions I did not notice that Craig had 
dropped to his knees and was peering into the 
shadow under the laboratory table. When at last 
he rose and straightened himself up, however, I saw 
that he was holding in the palm of his hand a half- 
smoked, gold-tipped cigarette, which had evidently 
fallen on the floor beneath the table where it had 


1 6 THE WAR TERROR 

burned itself out, leaving a blackened mark on the 
wood. 

An instant afterward he picked out from the pile 
of articles found in Fortescue’s pockets and lying on 
another table a silver cigarette case. He snapped it 
open. Fortescue’s cigarettes, of which there were 
perhaps a half dozen in the case, were cork-tipped. 

Some one had evidently visited the inventor the 
night before, had apparently offered him a cigarette, 
for there were any number of the cork-tipped stubs 
lying about. Who was it? I caught Paula looking 
with fascinated gaze at the gold-tipped stub, as Ken- 
nedy carefully folded it up in a piece of paper and 
deposited it in his pocket. Did she know something 
about the case, I wondered? 

Without a word, Kennedy seemed to take in the 
scant furniture of the laboratory at a glance and a 
quick step or two brought him before a steel filing 
cabinet. One drawer, which had not been closed as 
tightly as the rest, projected a bit. On its face was a 
little typewritten card bearing the inscription: “E-M 
GUN.” 

He pulled the drawer open and glanced over the 
data in it. 

“Just what is an electro-magnetic gun?” I asked, 
interpreting the initials on the drawer. 

“Well,” he explained as he turned over the notes 
and sketches, “the primary principle involved in the 
construction of such a gun consists in impelling the 
projectile by the magnetic action of a solenoid, the 
sectional coils or helices of which are supplied with 
current through devices actuated by the projectile 
itself. In other words, the sections of helices of the 
solenoid produce an accelerated motion of the pro- 
jectile by acting successively on it, after a principle 


THE ELECTRO-MAGNETIC GUN 17 

involved in the construction of electro-magnetic rock 
drills and dispatch tubes. 

“All projectiles used in this gun of Fortescue’s 
evidently must have magnetic properties and projec- 
tiles of iron or containing large portions of iron are 
necessary. You see, many coils are wound around 
the barrel of the gun. As the projectile starts it 
does so under the attraction of those coils ahead 
which the current makes temporary magnets. It 
automatically cuts off the current from those coils 
that it passes, allowing those further on only to at- 
tract it, and preventing those behind from pulling 
it back.” 

He paused to study the scraps of plans. “Fortes- 
cue had evidently also worked out a way of chang- 
ing the poles of the coils as the projectile passed, 
causing them then to repel the projectile, which 
must have added to its velocity. He seems to have 
overcome the practical difficulty that in order to ob- 
tain service velocities with service projectiles an 
enormous number of windings and a tremendously 
long barrel are necessary as well as an abnormally 
heavy current beyond the safe carrying capacity of 
the solenoid which would raise the temperature to a 
point that would destroy the coils.” 

He continued turning over the prints and notes 
in the drawer. When he finished, he looked up at 
us with an expression that indicated that he had 
merely satisfied himself of something he had already 
suspected. 

“You were right, Burke,” he said. “The final 
plans are gone.” 

Burke, who, in the meantime, had been telephon- 
ing about the city in a vain effort to locate Baron 
Kreiger, both at such banking offices in Wall Street 


1 8 THE WAR TERROR 

as he might be likely to visit and at some of the ho- 
tels most frequented by foreigners, merely nodded. 
He was evidently at a loss completely how to pro- 
ceed. 

In fact, there seemed to be innumerable prob- 
lems — to warn Baron Kreiger, to get the list of the 
assassinations, to guard Miss Lowe against falling 
into the hands of her anarchist friends again, to find 
the murderer of Fortescue, to prevent the use of the 
electro-magnetic gun, and, if possible, to seize the 
anarchists before they had a chance to carry further 
their plans. 

“There is nothing more that we can do here,” re- 
marked Craig briskly, betraying no sign of hesita- 
tion. “I think the best thing we can do is to go 
to my own laboratory. There at least there is some- 
thing I must investigate sooner or later.” 

No one offering either a suggestion or an objec- 
tion, we four again entered our cab. It was quite 
noticeable now that the visit had shaken Paula 
Lowe, but Kennedy still studiously refrained from 
questioning her, trusting that what she had seen and 
heard, especially Burke’s report as to Baron Kreiger, 
would have its effect. 

Like everyone visiting Craig’s laboratory for the 
first time, Miss Lowe seemed to feel the spell of the 
innumerable strange and uncanny instruments which 
he had gathered about him in his scientific warfare 
against crime. I could see that she was becoming 
more and more nervous, perhaps fearing even that 
in some incomprehensible way he might read her 
own thoughts. Yet one thing I did not detect. She 
showed no disposition to turn back on the course on 
which she had entered by coming to us in the first 
place. 


THE ELECTRO-MAGNETIC GUN 19 

Kennedy was quickly and deftly testing the stub 
of the little thin, gold-tipped cigarette. 

“Excessive smoking,” he remarked casually, 
“causes neuroses of the heart and tobacco has a spe- 
cific affinity for the coronary arteries as well as a 
tremendous effect on the vagus nerve. But I don’t 
think this was any ordinary smoke.” 

He had finished his tests and a quiet smile of satis- 
faction flitted momentarily over his face. We had 
been watching him anxiously, wondering what he 
had found. 

As he looked up he remarked to us, with his eyes 
fixed on Miss Lowe, “That was a ladies’ cigarette. 
Did you notice the size? There has been a woman 
in this case — presumably.” 

The girl, suddenly transformed by the rapid-fire 
succession of discoveries, stood before us like a spec- 
ter. 

“The ‘Group,’ as anarchists call it,” pursued 
Craig, “is the loosest sort of organization conceiv- 
able, I believe, with no set membership, no officers, 
no laws — just a place of meeting with no fixity, 
where the comrades get together. Could you get us 
into the inner circle, Miss Lowe?” 

Her only answer was a little suppressed scream. 
Kennedy had asked the question merely for its ef- 
fect, for it was only too evident that there was no 
time, even if she could have managed it, for us to 
play the “stool pigeon.” 

Kennedy, who had been clearing up the materials 
he had used in the analysis of the cigarette, wheeled 
about suddenly. “Where is the headquarters of the 
inner circle?” he shot out. 

Miss Lowe hesitated. That had evidently been 
one of the things she had determined not to divulge. 


20 THE WAR TERROR 

“Tell me,” insisted Kennedy. “You must!” 

If it had been Burke’s bulldozing she would never 
have yielded. But as she looked into Kennedy’s 
eyes she read there that he had long since fathomed 
the secret of her wildly beating heart, that if she 
would accomplish the purpose of saving the Baron 
she must stop at nothing. 

“At — Maplehurst,” she answered in a low tone, 
dropping her eyes from his penetrating gaze, “Pro- 
fessor Annenberg’s home — out on Long Island.” 

“We must act swiftly if we are to succeed,” con- 
sidered Kennedy, his tone betraying rather sympa- 
thy with than triumph over the wretched girl who 
had at last cast everything in the balance to out- 
weigh the terrible situation into which she had been 
drawn. “To send Miss Lowe for that fatal list of 
assassinations is to send her either back into the 
power of this murderous group and let them know 
that she has told us, or perhaps to involve her again 
in the completion of their plans.” 

She sank back into a chair in complete nervous 
and physical collapse, covering her face with her 
hands at the realization that in her new-found pas- 
sion to save the Baron she had bared her sensitive 
soul for the dissection of three men whom she had 
never seen before. 

“We must have that list,” pursued Kennedy de- 
cisively. “We must visit Annenberg’s headquar- 
ters.” 

“And I?” she asked, trembling now with genuine 
fear at the thought that he might ask her to accom- 
pany us as he had on our visit to Fortescue’s labora- 
tory that morning. 

“Miss Lowe,” said Kennedy, bending over her, 
“you have gone too far now ever to turn back. You 


THE ELECTRO-MAGNETIC GUN 21 


are not equal to the trip. Would you like to re- 
main here? No one will suspect. Here at least 
you will be safe until we return.” 

Her answer was a mute expression of thanks and 
confidence. 


CHAPTER III 


THE MURDER SYNDICATE 

Quickly now Craig completed his arrangements 
for the visit to the headquarters of the real anar- 
chist leader. Burke telephoned for a high-powered 
car, while Miss Lowe told frankly of the habits of 
Annenberg and the chances of finding his place un- 
guarded, which were good in the daytime. Ken- 
nedy’s only equipment for the excursion consisted in 
a small package which he took from a cabinet at the 
end of the room, and, with a parting reassurance to 
Paula Lowe, we were soon speeding over the bridge 
to the borough across the river. 

We realized that it might prove a desperate un- 
dertaking, but the crisis was such that it called for 
any risk. 

Our quest took us to a rather dilapidated old 
house on the outskirts of the little Long Island town. 
The house stood alone, not far from the tracks of 
a trolley that ran at infrequent intervals. Even a 
hasty reconnoitering showed that to stop our motor 
at even a reasonable distance from it was in itself 
to arouse suspicion. 

Although the house seemed deserted, Craig took 
no chances, but directed the car to turn at the next 
crossroad and then run back along a road back of 
and parallel to that on which Annenberg’s was situ- 
ated. It was perhaps a quarter of a mile away, 
22 


THE MURDER SYNDICATE 23 

across ail open field, that we stopped and ran the 
car up along the side of the road in some bushes. 
Annenberg’s was plainly visible and it was not at all 
likely that anyone there would suspect trouble from 
that quarter. 

A hasty conference with Burke followed, in which 
Kennedy unwrapped his small package, leaving part 
of its contents with him, and adding careful instruc- 
tions. 

Then Kennedy and I retraced our steps down the 
road, across by the crossroad, and at last back to 
the mysterious house. 

To all appearance there had been no need of such 
excessive caution. Not a sound or motion greeted 
us as we entered the gate and made our way around 
to the rear of the house. The very isolation of the 
house was now our protection, for we had no in- 
quisitive neighbors to watch us for the instant when 
Kennedy, with the dexterity of a yeggman, inserted 
his knife between the sashes of the kitchen window 
and turned the catch which admitted us. 

We made our way on cautious tiptoe through a 
dining room to a living room, and, finding nothing, 
proceeded upstairs. There was not a soul, ap- 
parently, in the house, nor in fact anything to indi- 
cate that it was different from most small suburban 
homes, until at last we mounted to the attic. 

It was finished off in one large room across the 
back of the house and two in front. As we opened 
the door to the larger room, we could only gaze 
about in surprise. This was the rendezvous, the 
arsenal, literary, explosive and toxicological of the 
“Group.” Ranged on a table were all the materials 
for bomb-making, while in a cabinet I fancied there 
were poisons enough to decimate a city. 


24 THE WAR TERROR 

On the walls were pictures, mostly newspaper 
prints, of the assassins of McKinley, of King Hum- 
bert, of the King of Greece, of King Carlos and 
others, interspersed with portraits of anarchist and 
anti-militarist leaders of all lands. 

Kennedy sniffed. Over all I, too, could catch the 
faint odor of stale tobacco. No time was to be 
lost, however, and while Craig set to work rapidly 
going through the contents of a desk in the corner, I 
glanced over the contents of a drawer of a heavy 
mission table. 

“Here’s some of Annenberg’s literature,” I re- 
marked, coming across a small pile of manuscript, 
entitled “The Human Slaughter House.” 

“Read it,” panted Kennedy, seeing that I had 
about completed my part of the job. “It may give 
a clue.” 

Hastily I scanned the mad, frantic indictment of 
war, while Craig continued in his search: 


“I see wild beasts all around me, distorted un- 
naturally, in a life and death struggle, with blood- 
shot eyes, with foaming, gnashing mouths. They 
attack and kill one another and try to mangle each 
other. I leap to my feet. I race out into the night 
and tread on quaking flesh, step on hard heads, and 
stumble over weapons and helmets. Something is 
clutching at my feet like hands, so that I race away 
like a hunted deer with the hounds at his heels — and 
ever over more bodies — breathless . . . out of one 
field into another. Horror is crooning over my 
head. Horror is crooning beneath my feet. And 
nothing but dying, mangled flesh! 

“Of a sudden I see nothing but blood before me. 
The heavens have opened and the red blood pours 
in through the windows. Blood wells up on an altar. 


THE MURDER SYNDICATE 25 

The walls run blood from the ceiling to the floor 
and ... a giant of blood stands before me. His 
beard and his hair drip blood. He seats himself 
on the altar and laughs from thick lips. The black 
executioner raises his sword and whirls it above my 
head. Another moment and my head will roll down 
on the floor. Another moment and the red jet will 
spurt from my neck. 

“Murderers l Murderers! None other than 
murderers !” 

I paused in the reading. “There’s nothing here,” 
I remarked, glancing over the curious document for 
a clue, but finding none. 

“Well,” remarked Craig contemplatively, “one 
can at least easily understand how sensitive and im- 
aginative people who have fallen under the influence 
of one who writes in that way can feel justified in 
killing those responsible for bringing such horrors 
on the human race. Hello — what’s this?” 

He had discovered a false back of one of the 
drawers in the desk and had jimmied it open. On 
the top of innumerable papers lay a large linen en- 
velope. On jts face it bore in typewriting, just like 
the card on the drawer at Fortescue’s, “E-M GUN.” 

“It is the original envelope that contained the 
final plans of the electro-magnetic gun,” he ex- 
plained, opening it. 

The envelope was empty. We looked at each 
other a moment in silence. What had been done 
with the plans? 

Suddenly a bell rang, startling me beyond meas- 
ure. It was, however, only the telephone, of which 
an extension reached up into the attic-arsenal. Some 
one, who did not know that we were there, was evi- 
dently calling up. 

a 


2 6 THE WAR TERROR 

Kennedy quickly unhooked the receiver with a 
hasty motion to me to be silent. 

“Hello,” I heard him answer. “Yes, this is it.” 

He had disguised his voice. I waited anxiously 
and watched his face to gather what response he 
received. 

“The deuce!” he exclaimed, with his hand over 
the transmitter so that his voice would not be heard 
at the other end of the line. 

“What’s the matter?” I asked eagerly. 

“It was Mrs. Annenberg — I am sure. But she 
was too keen for me. She caught on. There must 
be some password or form of expression that they 
use, which we don’t know, for she hung up the re- 
ceiver almost as soon as she heard me.” 

Kennedy waited a minute or so. Then he whistled 
into the transmitter. It was done apparently to see 
whether there was anyone listening. But there was 
no answer. 

“Operator, operator !” he called insistently, mov- 
ing the hook up and down. “Yes, operator. Can 
you tell me what number that was which just 
called?” 

He waited impatiently. 

“Bleecker — 7180,” he repeated after the girl. 
“Thank you. Information, please.” 

Again we waited, as Craig tried to trace the call 

up * _ . 

“What is the street address of Bleecker, 71S0?” 
he asked. “Five hundred and one East Fifth — a 
tenement. Thank you.” 

“A tenement?” I repeated blankly. 

“Yes,” he cried, now for the first time excited. 
“Don’t you begin to see the scheme ? I’ll wager that 
Baron Kreiger has been lured to New York to pur- 


THE MURDER SYNDICATE 27 

chase the electro-magnetic gun which they have 
stolen from Fortescue and the British. That is the 
bait that is held out to him by the woman. Call up 
Miss Lowe at the laboratory and see if she knows 
the place.” 

I gave central the number, while he fell to at the 
little secret drawer of the desk again. The grinding 
of the wheels of a passing trolley interfered some- 
what with giving the number and I had to wait a 
moment. 

“Ah — Walter — here’s the list!” almost shouted 
Kennedy, as he broke open a black-japanned dis- 
patch box in the desk. 

I bent over it, as far as the slack of the telephone 
wire of the receiver at my ear would permit. An- 
nenberg had worked with amazing care and neat- 
ness on the list, even going so far as to draw at the 
top, in black, a death’s head. The rest of it was 
elaborately prepared in flaming red ink. 

Craig gasped to observe the list of world-famous 
men marked for destruction in London, Paris, Ber- 
lin, Rome, Vienna, St. Petersburg, and even in New 
York and Washington. 

“What is the date set?” I asked, still with my 
ear glued to the receiver. 

“To-night and to-morrow,” he replied, stuffing 
the fateful sheet into his pocket. 

Rummaging about in the drawer of the table, I 
had come to a package of gold-tipped cigarettes 
which had interested me and I had left them out. 
Kennedy was now looking at them curiously. 

“What is to be the method, do you suppose?” I 
asked. 

“By a poison that is among the most powerful, 
approaching even cyanogen,” he replied confidently, 


28 


THE WAR TERROR 


tapping the cigarettes. “Do you smell the odor in 
this room? What is it like?” 

“Stale tobacco/’ I replied. 

“Exactly — nicotine. Two or three drops on the 
mouth-end of a cigar or cigarette. The intended 
victim thinks it is only natural. But it is the purest 
form of the deadly alkaloid — fatal in a few minutes, 
too.” 

He examined the thin little cigarettes more 
carefully. “Nicotine,” he went on, “was about the 
first alkaloid that was recovered from the body by 
chemical analysis in a homicide case. That is the 
penetrating, persistent odor you smelled at Fortes- 
cue’s and also here. It’s a very good poison — if 
you are not particular about being discovered. A 
pound of ordinary smoking tobacco contains from a 
half to an ounce of it. It is almost entirely con- 
sumed by combustion ; otherwise a pipeful would be 
fatal. Of course they may have thought that in- 
vestigators would believe that their victims were in- 
veterate smokers. But even the worst tobacco fiend 
wouldn’t show traces of the weed to such an ex- 
tent.” 

Miss Lowe answered at last and Kennedy took 
the telephone. 

“What is at five hundred and one East Fifth?” he 
asked. 

“A headquarters of the Group in the city,” she 
answered. “Why?” 

“Well, I believe that the plans of that gun are 
there and that the Baron ” 

“You damned spies!” came a voice from behind 
us. 

Kennedy dropped the receiver, turning quickly, his 
automatic gleaming in his hand. 


THE MURDER SYNDICATE 29 

There was just a glimpse of a man with glitter- 
ing bright blue eyes that had an almost fiendish, bale- 
ful glare. An instant later the door which had so 
unexpectedly opened banged shut, we heard a key 
turn in the lock — and the man dropped to the floor 
before even Kennedy’s automatic could test its abil- 
ity to penetrate wood on a chance at hitting some- 
thing the other side of it. 

We were prisoners! 

My mind worked automatically. At this very 
moment, perhaps, Baron Kreiger might be nego- 
tiating for the electro-magnetic gun. We had found 
out where he was, in all probability, but we were 
powerless to help him. I thought of Miss Lowe, 
and picked up the receiver which Kennedy had 
dropped. 

She did not answer. The wire had been cut. We 
were isolated! 

Kennedy had jumped to the window. I followed 
to restrain him, fearing that he had some mad 
scheme for climbing out. Instead, quickly he placed 
a peculiar arrangement, from the little package he 
had brought, holding it to his eye as if sighting it, 
his right hand grasping a handle as one holds a 
stereoscope. A moment later, as I examined it more 
closely, I saw that instead of looking at anything he 
had before him a small parabolic mirror turned 
away from him. 

His finger pressed alternately on a button on the 
handle and I could see that there flashed in the little 
mirror a minute incandescent lamp which seemed to 
have a special filament arrangement. 

The glaring sun was streaming in at the window 
and I wondered what could possibly be accom- 


30 THE WAR TERROR 

plished by the little light in competition with the 
sun itself. 

“Signaling by electric light in the daytime may 
sound to you ridiculous,” explained Craig, still in- 
dustriously flashing the light, “but this arrangement 
with Professor Donath’s signal mirror makes it pos- 
sible, all right. 

“I hadn’t expected this, but I thought I might 
want to communicate with Burke quickly. You see, 
I sight the lamp and then press the button which 
causes the light in the mirror to flash. It seems a 
paradox that a light like this can be seen from a 
distance of even five miles and yet be invisible to one 
for whom it was not intended, but it is so. I use the 
ordinary Morse code — two seconds for a dot, six 
for a dash with a four-second interval.” 

“What message did you send?” I asked. 

“I told him that Baron Kreiger was at five hun- 
dred and one East Fifth, probably; to get the secret 
service office in New York by wire and have them 
raid the place, then to come and rescue us. That 
was Annenberg. He must have come up by that 
trolley we heard passing just before.” 

The minutes seemed ages as we waited for Burke 
to start the machinery of the raid and then come for 
us. 

“No — you can’t have a cigarette — and if I had a 
pair of bracelets with me, I’d search you myself,” 
we heard a welcome voice growl outside the door a 
few minutes later. “Look in that other pocket, 
Tom.” 

The lock grated back and there stood Burke hold- 
ing in a grip of steel the undersized Annenberg, 
while the chauffeur who had driven our car swung 
open the door. 


THE MURDER SYNDICATE 31 

“I’d have been up sooner,” apologized Burke, giv- 
ing the anarchist an extra twist just to let him know 
that he was at last in the hands of the law, “only 
I figured that this fellow couldn’t have got far away 
in this God-forsaken Ducktown and I might as well 
pick him up while I had a chance. That’s a great 
little instrument of yours, Kennedy. I got you, 
fine.” 

Annenberg, seeing we were now four to one, con- 
cluded that discretion was the better part of valor 
and ceased to struggle, though now and then I could 
see he glanced at Kennedy out of the corner of his 
eye. To every question he maintained a stolid 
silence. 

A few minutes later, with the arch anarchist safely 
pinioned between us, we were speeding back toward 
New York, laying plans for Burke to dispatch warn- 
ings abroad to those whose names appeared on the 
fatal list, and at the same time to round up as many 
of the conspirators as possible in America. 

As for Kennedy, his main interest now lay in 
Baron Kreiger and Paula. While she had been 
driven frantic by the outcome of the terrible pact 
into which she had been drawn, some one, undoubt- 
edly, had been trying to sell Baron Kreiger the gun 
that had been stolen from the American inventor. 
Once they had his money and he had received the 
plans of the gun, a fatal cigarette would be smoked. 
Could we prevent it? 

On we tore back to the city, across the bridge 
and down through the canyons of East Side streets. 

At last we pulled up before the tenement at five 
hundred and one. As we did so, one of Burke’s 
men jumped out of the doorway. 

“Are we in time?” shouted Burke. 


3 * 


THE WAR TERROR 

“It’s an awful mix-up,” returned the man. “I 
can’t make anything out of it, so I ordered ’em all 
held here till you came.” 

We pushed past without a word of criticism of his 
wonderful acumen. 

On the top floor we came upon a young man, 
bending over the form of a girl who had fainted. 
On the floor of the middle of the room was a mass 
of charred papers which had evidently burned a 
hole in the carpet before they had been stamped 
out. Near by was an unlighted cigarette, crushed 
flat on the floor. 

“How is she?” asked Kennedy anxiously of the 
young man, as he dropped down on the other side 
of the girl. 

It was Paula. She had fainted, but was just now 
coming out of the borderland of unconsciousness. 

“Was I in time? Had he smoked it?” she 
moaned weakly, as there swam before her eyes, evi- 
dently, a hazy vision of our faces. 

Kennedy turned to the young man. 

“Baron Kreiger, I presume?” he inquired. 

The young man nodded. 

“Burke of the Secret Service,” introduced Craig, 
indicating our friend. “My name is Kennedy. Tell 
what happened.” 

“I had just concluded a transaction,” returned 
Kreiger in good but carefully guarded English. 
“Suddenly the door burst open. She seized these 
papers and dashed a cigarette out of my hands. The 
next instant she had touched a match to them and 
had fallen in a faint almost in the blaze. Strangest 
experience I ever had in my life. Then all these 
other fellows came bursting in — said they were Se- 
cret Service men, too.” 


THE MURDER SYNDICATE 33 

Kennedy had no time to reply, for a cry from 
Annenberg directed our attention to the next room 
where on a couch lay a figure all huddled up. 

As we looked we saw it was a woman, her head 
sweating profusely, and her hands cold and clammy. 
There was a strange twitching of the muscles of the 
face, the pupils of her eyes were widely dilated, her 
pulse weak and irregular. Evidently her circula- 
tion had failed so that it responded only feebly to 
stimulants, for her respiration was slow and labored, 
with loud inspiratory gasps. 

Annenberg had burst with superhuman strength 
from Burke’s grasp and was kneeling by the side of 
his wife’s deathbed. 

“It- — was all Paula’s fault ” gasped the 

woman. “I — knew I had better — carry it through 
— like the Fortescue visit — alone.” 

I felt a sense of reassurance at the words. At 
least my suspicions had been unfounded. Paula 
was innocent of the murder of Fortescue. 

“Severe, acute nicotine poisoning,” remarked 
Kennedy, as he rejoined us a moment later. “There 
is nothing we can do — now.” 

Paula moved at the words, as though they had 
awakened a new energy in her. With a supreme 
effort she raised herself. 

“Then I — I failed?” she cried, catching sight of 
Kennedy. 

“No, Miss Lowe,” he answered gently. “You 
won. The plans of the terrible gun are destroyed. 
The Baron is safe. Mrs. Annenberg has herself 
smoked one of the fatal cigarettes intended for 
him.” 

Kreiger looked at us, uncomprehending. Ken- 
nedy picked up the crushed, unlighted cigarette and 


THE WAR TERROR 


34 

laid it in the palm of his hand beside another, half 
smoked, which he had found beside Mrs. Annen- 
berg. 

“They are deadly,” he said simply to Kreiger. 
“A few drops of pure nicotine hidden by that pretty 
gilt tip would have accomplished all that the bit- 
terest anarchist could desire.” 

All at once Kreiger seemed to realize what he had 
escaped so narrowly. He turned toward Paula. 
The revulsion of her feelings at seeing him safe 
was too much for her shattered nerves. 

With a faint little cry, she tottered. 

Before any of us could reach her, he had caught 
her in his arms and imprinted a warm kiss on the 
insensible lips. 

“Some water — quick!” he cried, still holding her 
close. 


CHAPTER lVi 


THE AIR PIRATE 

Rounding up the “Group” took several days, and 
it proved to be a great story for the Star. I was 
pretty fagged when it was all over, but there was a 
great deal of satisfaction in knowing that we had 
frustrated one of the most daring anarchist plots 
of recent years. 

“Can you arrange to spend the week-end with 
me at Stuyvesant Verplanck’s at Bluffwood?” asked 
Kennedy over the telephone, the afternoon that I 
had completed my work on the newspaper of un- 
doing what Annenberg and the rest had attempted. 

“How long since society took you up?” I asked 
airily, adding, “Is it a large house party you are 
getting up?” 

“You have heard of the so-called ‘phantom bandit’ 
of Bluffwood, haven’t you?” he returned rather 
brusquely, as though there was no time now for ban- 
tering. 

I confess that in the excitement of the anarchists 
I had forgotten it, but now I recalled that for sev- 
eral days I had been reading little paragraphs about 
robberies on the big estates on the Long Island shore 
of the Sound. One of the local correspondents had 
called the robber a “phantom bandit,” but I had 
thought it nothing more than an attempt to make 
good copy out of a rather ordinary occurrence. 

35 


3 6 THE WAR TERROR 

“Well,” he hurried on, “that’s the reason why I 
have been ‘taken up by society,’ as you so elegantly 
phrase it. From the secret hiding-places of the 
boudoirs and safes of fashionable women at Bluff- 
wood, thousands of dollars’ worth of jewels and 
other trinkets have mysteriously vanished. Of 
course you’ll come along. Why, it will be just the 
story to tone up that alleged page of society news 
you hand out in the Sunday Star. There — we’re 
quits now. Seriously, though, Walter, it really 
seems to be a very baffling case, or rather series of 
cases. The whole colony out there is terrorized. 
They don’t know who the robber is, or how he 
operates, or who will be the next victim, but his 
skill and success seem almost uncanny. Mr. Ver- 
planck has put one of his cars at my disposal and 
I’m up here at the laboratory gathering some ap- 
paratus that may be useful. I’ll pick you up any- 
where between this and the Bridge — how about Co- 
lumbus Circle in half an hour?” 

“Good,” I agreed, deciding quickly from his tone 
and manner of assurance that it would be a case I 
could not afford to miss. 

The Stuyvesant Verplancks, I knew, were among 
the leaders of the rather recherche society at Bluff- 
wood, and the pace at which Bluffwood moved and 
had its being was such as to guarantee a good story 
in one way or another. 

“Why,” remarked Kennedy, as we sped out over 
the picturesque roads of the north shore of Long 
Island, “this fellow, or fellows, seems to have taken 
the measure of all the wealthy members of the ex- 
clusive organizations out there — the Westport Yacht 
Club, the Bluffwood Country Club, the North Shore 
Hunt, and all of them. It’s a positive scandal, the 


THE AIR PIRATE 37 

ease with which he seems to come and go without 
detection, striking now here, now there, often at 
places that it seems physically impossible to get at, 
and yet always with the same diabolical skill and 
success. One night he will take some baubles worth 
thousands, the next pass them by for something ap- 
parently of no value at all, a piece of bric-a-brac, a 
bundle of letters, anything.” 

“Seems purposeless, insane, doesn’t it?” I put in. 

“Not when he always takes something — often 
more valuable than money,” returned Craig. 

He leaned back in the car and surveyed the 
glimpses of bay and countryside as we were whisked 
by the breaks in the trees. 

“Walter,” he remarked meditatively, “have you 
ever considered the possibilities of blackmail if the 
right sort of evidence were obtained under this new 
‘white-slavery act’? Scandals that some of the fast 
set may be inclined to wink at, that at worst used 
to end in Reno, become felonies with federal prison 
sentences looming up in the background. Think 
it over.” 

Stuyvesant Verplanck had telephoned rather hur- 
riedly to Craig earlier in the day, retaining his ser- 
vices, but telling only in the briefest way of the ex- 
tent of the depredations, and hinting that more than 
jewelry might be at stake. 

It was a pleasant ride, but we finished it in si- 
lence. Verplanck was, as I recalled, a large master- 
ful man, one of those who demanded and liked large 
things — such as the estate of several hundred acres 
which we at last entered. 

It was on a neck of land with the restless waters 
of the Sound on one side and the calmer waters of 
the bay on the other. Westport Bay lay in a beau- 


3 8 THE WAR TERROR 

tifully wooded, hilly country, and the house itself 
was on an elevation, with a huge sweep of terraced 
lawn before it down to the water’s edge. All around, 
for miles, were other large estates, a veritable col- 
ony of wealth. 

As we pulled up under the broad stone porte- 
cochere, Verplanck, who had been expecting us, led 
the way into his library, a great room, literally 
crowded with curios and objects of art which he had 
collected on his travels. It was a superb mental 
workshop, overlooking the bay, with a stretch of 
several miles of sheltered water. 

“You will recall,” began Verplanck, wasting no 
time over preliminaries, but plunging directly into 
the subject, “that the prominent robberies of late 
have been at seacoast resorts, especially on the 
shores of Long Island Sound, within, say, a hundred 
miles of New York. There has been a great deal of 
talk about dark and muffled automobiles that have 
conveyed mysterious parties swiftly and silently 
across country. 

“My theory,” he went on self-assertively, “is that 
the attack has been made always along water routes. 
Under shadow of darkness, it is easy to slip into one 
of the sheltered coves or miniature fiords with which 
the north coast of the Island abounds, land a cut- 
throat crew primed with exact information of the 
treasure on some of these estates. Once the booty 
is secured, the criminal could put out again into the 
Sound without leaving a clue.” 

He seemed to be considering his theory. “Per- 
haps the robberies last summer at Narragansett, 
Newport, and a dozen other New England places 
were perpetrated by the same cracksman. I be- 
lieve,” he concluded, lowering his voice, “that there 


THE AIR PIRATE 39 

plies to-day on the wide waters of the Sound a slim, 
swift motor boat which wears the air of a pleasure 
craft, yet is as black a pirate as ever flew the Jolly 
Roger. She may at this moment be anchored off 
some exclusive yacht club, flying the respectable 
burgee of the club — who knows?” 

He paused as if his deductions settled the case so 
far. He would have resumed in the same vein, if 
the door had not opened. A lady in a cobwebby 
gown entered the room. She was of middle age, but 
had retained her youth with a skill that her sisters 
of less leisure always envy. Evidently she had not 
expected to And anyone, yet nothing seemed to dis- 
concert her. 

“Mrs. Verplanck,” her husband introduced, “Pro- 
fessor Kennedy and his associate, Mr. Jameson — 
those detectives we have heard about. We were dis- 
cussing the robberies.” 

“Oh, yes,” she said, smiling, “my husband has 
been thinking of forming himself into a vigilance 
committee. The local authorities are all at sea.” 

I thought there was a trace of something veiled in 
the remark and fancied, not only then but later, that 
there was an air of constraint between the couple. 

“You have not been robbed yourself?” queried 
Craig tentatively. 

“Indeed we have,” exclaimed Verplanck quickly. 
“The other night I was awakened by the noise of 
some one down here in this very library. I fired 
a shot, wild, and shouted, but before I could get 
down here the intruder had fled through a window, 
and half rolling down the terraces. Mrs. Verplanck 
was awakened by the rumpus and both of us heard 
a peculiar whirring noise.” 

“Like an automobile muffled down,” she put in. 


40 


THE WAR TERROR 

“No,” he asserted vigorously, “more like a pow- 
erful motor boat, one with the exhaust under water.” 

“Well,” she shrugged, “at any rate, we saw no 
one.” 

“Did the intruder get anything?” 

“That’s the lucky part. He had just opened this 
safe apparently and begun to ransack it. This is 
my private safe. Mrs. Verplanck has another built 
into her own room upstairs where she keeps her 
jewels.” 

“It is not a very modern safe, is it?” ventured 
Kennedy. “The fellow ripped off the outer casing 
with what they call a ‘can-opener.’ ” 

“No. I keep it against fire rather than burglars. 
But he overlooked a box of valuable heirlooms, some 
silver with the Verplanck arms. I think I must have 
scared him off just in time. He seized a package in 
the safe, but it was only some business correspond- 
ence. I don’t relish having lost it, particularly. It 
related to a gentlemen’s agreement a number of us 
had in the recent cotton corner. I suppose the Gov- 
ernment would like to have it. But — here’s the 
point. If it is so easy to get in and get away, no 
one in Bluffwood is safe.” 

“Why, he robbed the Montgomery Carter place 
the other night,” remarked Mrs. Verplanck, “and 
almost got a lot of old Mrs. Carter’s jewels as well 
as stuff belonging to her son, Montgomery, Junior. 
That was the first robbery. Mr. Carter, that is 
Junior — Monty, everyone calls him — and his chauf- 
feur almost captured the fellow, but he managed to 
escape in the woods.” 

“In the woods?” repeated Craig. 

Mrs. Verplanck nodded. “But they saved the 
loot he was about to take.” 


THE AIR PIRATE 4I 

u 0h, no one is safe any more,” reiterated Ver- 
planck. “Carter seems to be the only one who has 
had a real chance at him, and he was able to get 
away neatly.” 

“But he’s not the only one who got off without 

a loss,” she put in significantly. “The last visit ” 

Then she paused. 

“Where was the last attempt?” asked Kennedy. 

“At the house of Mrs. Elollingsworth — around 
the point on this side of the bay. You can’t see it 
from here.” 

“I’d like to go there,” remarked Kennedy. 

“Very well. Car or boat?” 

“Boat, I think.” 

“Suppose we go in my little runabout, the Stream- 
line II f She’s as fast as any ordinary automobile.” 

“Very good. Then we can get an idea of the har 
bor.” 

“I’ll telephone first that we are coming,” said 
Verplanck. 

“I think I’ll go, too,” considered Mrs. Verplanck, 
ringing for a heavy wrap. 

“Just as you please,” said Verplanck. 

The Streamline was a three-stepped boat which 
Verplanck had built for racing, a beautiful craft, 
managed much like a racing automobile. As she 
started from the dock, the purring drone of her 
eight cylinders sent her feathering over the waves 
like a skipping stone. She sank back into the wa- 
ter, her bow leaping upward, a cloud of spray in her 
wake, like a waterspout. 

Mrs. Hollingsworth was a wealthy divorcee, liv- 
ing rather quietly with her two children, of whom 
the courts had awarded her the care. She was a 
striking woman, one of those for whom the new 

4 


42 THE WAR TERROR 

styles of dress seem especially to have been de- 
signed. I gathered, however, that she was not on 
very good terms with the little Westport clique in 
which the Verplancks moved, or at least not with 
Mrs. Verplanck. The two women seemed to regard 
each other rather coldly, I thought, although Mr. 
Verplanck, man-like, seemed to scorn any distinc- 
tions and was more than cordial. I wondered why 
Mrs. Verplanck had come. 

The Hollingsworth house was a beautiful little 
place down the bay from the Yacht Club, but not 
as far as Verplanck’s, or the Carter estate, which 
was opposite. 

“Yes,” replied Mrs. Hollingsworth when the rea- 
son for our visit had been explained, “the attempt 
was a failure. I happened to be awake, rather late, 
or perhaps you would call it early. I thought I 
heard a noise as if some one was trying to break 
into the drawing-room through the window. I 
switched on all the lights. I have them arranged so 
for just that purpose of scaring off intruders. Then, 
as I looked out of my window on the second floor, I 
fancied I could see a dark figure slink into the 
shadow of the shubbery at the side of the house. 
Then there was a whirr. It might have been an 
automobile, although it sounded differently from 
that — more like a motor boat. At any rate, there 
was no trace of a car that we could discover in the 
morning. The road had been oiled, too, and a car 
would have left marks. And yet some one was here. 
There were marks on the drawing-room window just 
where I heard the sounds.” 

Who could it be? I asked myself as we left. I 
knew that the great army of chauffeurs was infested 
with thieves, thugs and gunmen. Then, too, there 


THE AIR PIRATE 


43 

were maids, always useful as scouts for these cor- 
sairs who prey on the rich. Yet so adroitly had 
everything been done in these cases that not a clue 
seemed to have been left behind by which to trace 
the thief. 

We returned to Verplanck’s in the Streamline in 
record time, dined, and then found McNeill, a local 
detective, waiting to add his quota of information. 
McNeill was of the square-toed, double-chinned, 
bull-necked variety, just the man to take along if 
there was any fighting. He had, however, very little 
to add to the solution of the mystery, apparently 
believing in the chauffeur-and-maid theory. 

It was too late to do anything more that night, 
and we sat on the Verplanck porch, overlooking the 
beautiful harbor. It was a black, inky night, with 
no moon, one of those nights when the myriad lights 
on the boats were mere points in the darkness. As 
we looked out over the water, considering the case 
which as yet we had hardly started on, Kennedy 
seemed engrossed in the study in black. 

“I thought I saw a moving light for an instant 
across the bay, above the boats, and as though it 
were in the darkness of the hills on the other side. 
Is there a road%ver there, above the Carter house?” 
he asked suddenly. 

“There is a road part of the way on the crest of 
the hill,” replied Mrs. Verplanck. “You can see a 
car on it, now and then, through the trees, like a 
moving light.” 

“Over there, I mean,” reiterated Kennedy, indi- 
cating the light as it flashed now faintly, then dis- 
appeared, to reappear further along, like a gigantic 
firefly in the night. 

“N-no,” said Verplanck. “I don’t think the road 


THE WAR TERROR 


44 

runs down as far as that. It is further up the bay.” 

“What is it then?” asked Kennedy, half to him- 
self. “It seems to be traveling rapidly. Now it 
must be about opposite the Carter house. There — 
it has gone.” 

We continued to watch for several minutes, but 
it did not reappear. Could it have been a light on 
the mast of a boat moving rapidly up the bay and 
perhaps nearer to us than we suspected? Nothing 
further happened, however, and we retired early, 
expecting to start with fresh minds on the case in 
the morning. Several watchmen whom Verplanck 
employed both on the shore and along the drive- 
ways were left guarding every possible entrance to 
the estate. 

Yet the next morning as we met in the cheery east 
breakfast room, Verplanck’s gardener came in, hat 
in hand, with much suppressed excitement. 

In his hand he held an orange which he had found 
in the shrubbery underneath the windows of the 
house. In it was stuck a long nail and to the nail was 
fastened a tag. 

Kennedy read it quickly. 

“If this had been a bomb, you and your detectives 
tvould never have known what struck you. 

“Aquaero.” 


CHAPTER V 


THE ULTRA-VIOLET RAY 

“Good Gad, man!” exclaimed Yerplanck, who 
had read it over Craig’s shoulder. “What do you 
make of that?” 

Kennedy merely shook his head. Mrs. Verplanck 
was the calmest of all. 

“The light,” I cried. “You remember the light? 
Could it have been a signal to some one on this side 
of the bay, a signal light in the woods?” 

“Possibly,” commented Kennedy absently, adding, 
“Robbery with this fellow seems to be an art as 
carefully strategized as a promoter’s plan or a mer- 
chant’s trade campaign. I think I’ll run over this 
morning and see if there is any trace of anything on 
the Carter estate.” 

Just then the telephone rang insistently. It was 
McNeill, much excited, though he had not heard 
of the orange incident. Verplanck answered the 
call. 

“Have you heard the news?” asked McNeill. 
“They report this morning that that fellow must 
have turned up last night at Belle Aire.” 

“Belle Aire? Why, man, that’s fifty miles away 
and on the other side of the island. He was here 
last night,” and Verplanck related briefly the find 
of the morning. “No boat could get around the 
45 


4 6 THE WAR TERROR 

island in that time and as for a car — those roads 
are almost impossible at night.” 

“Can’t help it,” returned McNeill doggedly. 
“The Halstead estate out at Belle Aire was robbed 
last night. It’s spooky all right.” 

“Tell McNeill I want to see him — will meet him 
in the village directly,” cut in Craig before Ver- 
planck had finished. 

We bolted a hasty breakfast and in one of Ver- 
planck’s cars hurried to meet McNeill. 

“What do you intend doing?” he asked help- 
lessly, as Kennedy finished his recital of the queer 
doings of the night before. 

“I’m going out now to look around the Carter 
place. Can you come along?” 

“Surely,” agreed McNeill, climbing into the car. 
“You know him?” 

“No.” 

“Then I’ll introduce you. Queer chap, Carter. 
He’s a lawyer, although I don’t think he has much 
practice, except managing his mother’s estate.” 

McNeill settled back in the luxurious car with 
an exclamation of satisfaction. 

“What do you think of Verplanck?” he asked. 

“He seems to me to be a very public-spirited 
man,” answered Kennedy discreetly. 

That, however, was not what McNeill meant and 
he ignored it. And so for the next ten minutes we 
were entertained with a little retail scandal of West- 
port and Bluffwood, including a tale that seemed to 
have gained currency that Verplanck and Mrs. Hol- 
lingsworth were too friendly to please Mrs. Ver- 
planck. I set the whole thing down to the hostility 
and jealousy of the towns people who misinterpret 
everything possible in the smart set, although I could 


THE ULTRA-VIOLET RAY 47 

not help recalling how quickly she had spoken when 
we had visited the Hollingsworth house in the 
Streamline the day before. 

Montgomery Carter happened to be at home 
and, at least openly, interposed no objection to our 
going about the grounds. 

“You see,” explained Kennedy, watching the ef- 
fect of his words as if to note whether Carter him- 
self had noticed anything unusual the night before, 
“we saw a light moving over here last night. To 
tell the truth, I half expected you would have a 
story to add to ours, of a second visit.” 

Carter smiled. “No objection at all. I’m simply 
nonplussed at the nerve of this fellow, coming back 
again. I guess you’ve heard what a narrow squeak 
he had with me. You’re welcome to go anywhere, 
just so long as you don’t disturb my study down 
there in the boathouse. I use that because it over- 
looks the bay — just the place to study over knotty 
legal problems.” 

Back of, or in front of the Carter house, accord- 
ing as you fancied it faced the bay or not, was the 
boathouse, built by Carter’s father, who had been 
a great yachtsman in his day and commodore of the 
club. His son had not gone in much for water 
sports and had converted the corner underneath a 
sort of observation tower into a sort of country law 
office. 

“There has always seemed to me to be something 
strange about that boathouse since the old man 
died,” remarked McNeill in a half whisper as we 
left Carter. “He always keeps it locked and never 
lets anyone go in there, although they say he has it 
fitted beautifully with hundreds of volumes of law 
books, too.” 


48 THE WAR TERROR 

Kennedy had been climbing the hill back of the 
house and now paused to look about. Below was 
the Carter garage. 

“By the way,” exclaimed McNeill, as if he had 
at last hit on a great discovery, “Carter has a new 
chauffeur, a fellow named Wickham. I just saw 
him driving down to the village. He’s a chap that 
it might pay us to watch — a newcomer, smart as a 
steel trap, they say, but not much of a talker.” 

“Suppose you take that job — watch him,” en- 
couraged Kennedy. “We can’t know too much 
about strangers here, McNeill.” 

“That’s right,” agreed the detective. “I’ll follow 
him back to the village and get a line on him.” 

“Don’t be easily discouraged,” added Kennedy, 
as McNeill started down the hill to the garage. “If 
he is a fox he’ll try to throw you off the trail. Hang 
on.” 

“What was that for?” I asked as the detective 
disappeared. “Did you want to get rid of him?” 

“Partly,” replied Craig, descending slowly, after 
a long survey of the surrounding country. 

We had reached the garage, deserted now except 
for our own car. 

“I’d like to investigate that tower,” remarked 
Kennedy with a keen look at me, “if it could be done 
without seeming to violate Mr. Carter’s hospi- 
tality.” 

“Well,” I observed, my eye catching a ladder be- 
side the garage, “there’s a ladder. We can do no 
more than try.” 

He walked over to the automobile, took a little 
package out, slipped it into his pocket, and a few 
minutes later we had set the ladder up against the 
side of the boathouse farthest away from the house. 


THE ULTRA-VIOLET RAY 49 

It was the work of only a moment for Kennedy to 
scale it and prowl across the roof to the tower, while 
I stood guard at the foot. 

“No one has been up there recently,” he panted 
breathlessly as he rejoined me. “There isn’t a 
sign.” 

We took the ladder quietly (pack to the garage, 
then Kennedy led the way down the shore to a sort 
of little summerhouse cut off from the boathouse 
and garage by the trees, though over the top of 
a hedge one could still see the boathouse tower. 

We sat down, and Craig filled his lungs with the 
good salt air, sweeping his eye about the blue and 
green panorama as though this were a holiday and 
not a mystery case. 

“Walter,” he said at length, “I wish you’d take 
the car and go around to Verplanck’s. I don’t think 
you can see the tower through the trees, but I should 
like to be sure.” 

I found that it could not be seen, though I tried 
all over the place and got myself disliked by the 
gardener and suspected by a watchman with a dog. 

It could not have been from the tower of the boat- 
house that we had seen the light, and I hurried back 
to Craig to tell him so. But when I returned, I 
found that he was impatiently pacing the little rustic 
summerhouse, no longer interested in what he had 
sent me to find out. 

“What has happened?” I asked eagerly. 

“Just come out here and I’ll show you some- 
thing,” he replied, leaving the summerhouse and 
approaching the boathouse from the other side of 
the hedge, on the beach, so that the house itself cut 
us off from observation from Carter’s. 

“I fixed a lens on the top of that tower when I 


50 THE WAR TERROR 

was up there,” he explained, pointing up at it. “It 
must be about fifty feet high. From there, you see, 
it throws a reflection down to this mirror. I did it 
because through a skylight in the tower I could read 
whatever was written by anyone sitting at Carter’s 
desk in the corner under it.” 

“Read?” I repeated, mystified. 

“Yes, by invisible light,” he continued. “This in- 
visible light business, you know, is pretty well under- 
stood by this time. I was only repeating what was 
suggested once by Professor Wood of Johns Hop- 
kins. Practically all sources of light, you under- 
stand, give out more or less ultraviolet light, which 
plays no part in vision whatever. The human eye 
is sensitive to but few of the light rays that reach 
it, and if our eyes were constituted just the least bit 
differently we should have an entirely different set 
of images. 

“But by the use of various devices we can, as it 
were, translate these ultraviolet rays into terms of 
what the human eye can see. In order to do it, all 
the visible light rays which show us the thing as we 
see it — the tree green, the sky blue — must be cut 
off. So in taking an ultraviolet photograph a screen 
must be used which will be opaque to these visible 
rays and yet will let the ultraviolet rays through to 
form the image. That gave Professor Wood a lot 
of trouble. Glass won’t do, for glass cuts off the 
ultraviolet rays entirely. Quartz is a very good 
medium, but it does not cut off all the visible light. 
In fact there is only one thing that will do the work, 
and that is metallic silver.” 

I could not fathom what he was driving at, but 
the fascination of Kennedy himself was quite suffi- 
cient. 


THE ULTRA-VIOLET RAY 51 

“Silver,” he went on, “is all right if the objects 
can be illuminated by an electric spark or some other 
source rich in the rays. But it isn’t entirely satisfac- 
tory when sunlight is concerned, for various reasons 
that I need not bore you with. Professor Wood has 
worked out a process of depositing nickel on glass. 
That’s it up there,” he concluded, wheeling a lower 
reflector about until it caught the image of the after- 
noon sun thrown from the lens on the top of the 
tower. 

“You see,” he resumed, “that upper lens is con- 
cave so that it enlarges tremendously. I can do 
some wonderful tricks with that.” 

I had been lighting a cigarette and held a box of 
safety wind matches in my hand. 

“Give me that matchbox,” he asked. 

He placed it at the foot of the tower. Then he 
went off, I should say, without exaggeration, a hun- 
dred feet. 

The lettering on the matchbox could be seen in 
the silvered mirror, enlarged to such a point that 
the letters were plainly visible! 

“Think of the possibilities in that,” he added ex- 
citedly. “I saw them at once. You can read what 
some one is writing at a desk a hundred, perhaps 
two hundred feet away.” 

“Yes,” I cried, more interested in the practical 
aspects of it than in the mechanics and optics. 
“What have you found?” 

“Some one came into the boathouse while you 
were away,” he said. “He had a note. It read, 
‘Those new detectives are watching everything. We 
must have the evidence. You must get those letters 
to-night, without fail.’ ” 


52 


THE WAR TERROR 

“Letters — evidence,’ 5 I repeated. “Who wrote 
k? Who received it?” 

“I couldn’t see over the hedge who had entered 
the boathouse, and by the time I got around here he 
was gone.” 

“Was it Wickham — or intended for Wickham?” 
I asked. 

Kennedy shrugged his shoulders. 

“We’ll gain nothing by staying here,” he said. 
“There is just one possibility in the case, and I can 
guard against that only by returning to Verplanck’s 
and getting some of that stuff I brought up here 
with me. Let us go.” 

Late in the afternoon though it was, after our 
return, Kennedy insisted on hurrying from Ver- 
planck’s to the Yacht Club up the bay. It was a 
large building, extending out into the water on made 
land, from which ran a long, substantial dock. He 
had stopped long enough only to ask Verplanck to 
lend him the services of his best mechanician, a 
Frenchman named Armand. 

On the end of the yacht club dock Kennedy and 
Armand set up a large affair which looked like a 
mortar. I watched curiously, dividing my atten- 
tion between them and the splendid view of the har- 
bor which the end of the dock commanded on all 
sides. 

“What is this?” I asked finally. “Fireworks?” 

“A rocket mortar of light weight,” explained 
Kennedy, then dropped into French as he explained 
to Armand the manipulation of the thing. 

There was a searchlight near by on the dock. 

“You can use that?” queried Kennedy. 

“Oh, yes. Mr. Verplanck, he is vice-commodore 


THE ULTRA-VIOLET RAY 53 

of the club. Oh, yes, I can use that. Why, Mon- 
sieur?” 

Kennedy had uncovered a round brass case. It 
did not seem to amount to much, as compared to 
some of the complicated apparatus he had used. In 
it was a four-sided prism of glass — I should have 
said, cut off the corner of a huge glass cube. 

He handed it to us. 

“Look in it,” he said. 

It certainly was about the most curious piece of 
crystal gazing I had ever done. Turn the thing 
any way I pleased and I could see my face in it, just 
as in an ordinary mirror. 

“What do you call it?” Armand asked, much in- 
terested. 

“A triple mirror,” replied Kennedy, and again, 
half in English and half in French, neither of which 
I could follow, he explained the use of the mirror 
to the mechanician. 

We were returning up the dock, leaving Armand 
with instructions to be at the club at dusk, when we 
met McNeill, tired and disgusted. 

“What luck?” asked Kennedy. 

“Nothing,” he returned. “I had a ‘short’ shadow 
and a ‘long’ shadow at Wickham’s heels all day. 
You know what I mean. Instead of one man, two — 
the second sleuthing in the other’s tracks. If he 
escaped Number One, Number Two would take it 
up, and I was ready to move up into Number Two’s 
place. They kept him in sight about all the time. 
Not a fact. But then, of course, we don’t know 
what he was doing before we took up tailing him. 
Say,” he added, “I have just got word from an 
agency with which I correspond in New York that 
it is reported that a yeggman named ‘Australia 


THE WAR TERROR 


54 

Mac/ a very daring and clever chap, has been at- 
tempting to dispose of some of the goods which we 
know have been stolen through one of the worst 
‘fences’ in New York.” 

“Is that all?” asked Craig, with the mention of 
Australia Mac showing the first real interest yet in 
anything that McNeill had done since we met him 
the night before. 

“All so far. I wired for more details imme- 
diately.” 

“Do you know anything about this Australia 
Mac?” 

“Not much. No one does. He’s a new man, it 
seems, to the police here.” 

“Be here at eight o’clock, McNeill,” said Craig, 
as we left the club for Verplanck’s. “If you can 
find out more about this yeggman, so much the bet- 
ter.” 

“Have you made any progress?” asked Verplanck 
as we entered the estate a few minutes later. 

“Yes,” returned Craig, telling only enough to 
whet his interest. “There’s a clue, as I half ex- 
pected, from New York, too. But we are so far 
away that we’ll have to stick to my original plan. 
You can trust Armand?” 

“Absolutely.” 

“Then we shall transfer our activity to the Yacht 
Club to-night,” was all that Kennedy vouchsafed. 


CHAPTER VI 


THE TRIPLE MIRROR 

It was the regular Saturday night dance at the 
club, a brilliant spectacle, faces that radiated pleas- 
ure, gowns that for startling combinations of color 
would have shamed a Futurist, music that set the 
feet tapping irresistibly — a scene which I shall pass 
over because it really has no part in the story. 

The fascination of the ballroom was utterly lost 
on Craig. “Think of all the houses only half 
guarded about here to-night,’’ he mused, as we 
joined Armand and McNeill on the end of the dock. 
I could not help noting that that was the only idea 
which the gay, variegated, sparkling tango throng 
conveyed to him. 

In front of the club was strung out a long line of 
cars, and at the dock several speed boats of national 
and international reputation, among them the fa- 
mous Streamline II, at our instant beck and call. In 
it Craig had already placed some rather bulky pieces 
of apparatus, as well as a brass case containing a 
second triple mirror like that which he had left with 
Armand. 

With McNeill, I walked back along the pier, leav- 
ing Kennedy with Armand, until we came to the wide 
porch, where we joined the wallflowers and the rock- 
ing-chair fleet. Mrs. Verplanck, I observed, was 

55 


THE WAR TERROR 


56 

a beautiful dancer. I picked her out in the throng 
immediately, dancing with Carter. 

McNeill tugged at my sleeve. Without a word 
I saw what he meant me to see. Verplanck and 
Mrs. Hollingsworth were dancing together. Just 
then, across the porch I caught sight of Kennedy at 
one of the wide windows. He was trying to attract 
Verplanck’s attention, and as he did so I worked 
my way through the throng of chatting couples leav- 
ing the floor until I reached him. Verplanck, ob- 
livious, finished the dance; then, seeming to recollect 
that he had something to attend to, caught sight of 
us, and ran off during the intermission from the gay 
crowd to which he resigned Mrs. Hollingsworth. 

“What is it?” he asked. 

“There’s that light down the bay,” whispered 
Kennedy. 

Instantly Verplanck forgot about the dance. 

“Where?” he asked. 

“In the same place.” 

I had not noticed, but Mrs. Verplanck, woman- 
like, had been able to watch several things at once. 
She had seen us and had joined us. 

“Would you like to run down there in the 
StreamlineV } he asked. “It will only take a few 
minutes.” 

“Very much.” 

“What is it — that light again?” she asked, as she 
joined us in walking down the dock. 

“Yes,” answered her husband, pausing to look for 
a moment at the stuff Kennedy had left with Ar- 
mand. Mrs. Verplanck leaned over the Streamline, 
turned as she saw me, and said: “I wish I could go 
with you. But evening dress is not the thing for a 
shivery night in a speed boat. I think I know as 


THE TRIPLE MIRROR 57 

much about it as Mr. Verplanck. Are you going to 
leave Armand?” 

“Yes,” replied Kennedy, taking his place beside 
Verplanck, who was seated at the steering wheel. 
“Walter and McNeill, if you two will sit back there, 
we’re ready. All right.” 

Armand had cast us off and Mrs. Verplanck 
waved from the end of the float as the Streamline 
quickly shot out into the night, a buzzing, throbbing 
shape of mahogany and brass, with her exhausts 
sticking out like funnels and booming like a pipe 
organ. It took her only seconds to eat into the 
miles. 

“A little more to port,” said Kennedy, as Ver- 
planck swung her around. 

Just then the steady droning of the engine seemed 
a bit less rhythmical. Verplanck throttled her 
dowrn, but it had no effect. He shut her off. Some- 
thing was wrong. As he crawled out into the space 
forward of us where the engine was, it seemed as 
if the Streamline had broken down suddenly and 
completely. 

Here we were floundering around in the middle of 
the bay. 

“Chuck-chuck-chuck,” came in quick staccato out 
of the night. It was Montgomery Carter, alone, on 
his way across the bay from the club, in his own 
boat. 

“Hello — Carter,” called Verplanck. 

“Hello, Verplanck. What’s the matter?” 

“Don’t know. Engine trouble of some kind. Can 
you give us a line?” 

“I’ve got to go down to the house,” he said, 
ranging up near us. “Then I can take you back. 
Perhaps I’d better get you out of the way of any 
5 


58 THE WAR TERROR 

other boats first. You don’t mind going over and 
then back?” 

Verplanck looked at Craig. “On the contrary,” 
muttered Craig, as he made fast the welcome line. 

The Carter dock was some three miles from the 
club on the other side of the bay. As we came up 
to it, Carter shut off his engine, bent over it a mo- 
ment, made fast, and left us with a hurried, “Wait 
here.” 

Suddenly, overhead, we heard a peculiar whirring 
noise that seemed to vibrate through the air. Some- 
thing huge, black, monster-like, slid down a board 
runway into the water, traveled a few feet, in white 
suds and spray, rose in the darkness — and was 
gone! 

As the thing disappeared, I thought I could hear 
a mocking laugh flung back at us. 

“What is it?” I asked, straining my eyes at what 
had seemed for an instant like a great flying fish 
with finny tail and huge fins at the sides and above. 

“ ‘Aquaero,’ ” quoted Kennedy quickly. “Don’t 
you understand — a hydroaeroplane — a flying boat. 
There are hundreds of privately owned flying boats 
now wherever there is navigable water. That was 
the secret of Carter’s boathouse, of the light we saw 
in the air.” 

“But this Aquaero — who is he?” persisted Mc^ 
Neill. “Carter — Wickham — Australia Mac?” 

We looked at each other blankly. No one said a 
word. We were captured, just as effectively as if 
we were ironed in a dungeon. There were the black 
water, the distant lights, which at any other time I 
should have said would have been beautiful. 

Kennedy had sprung into Carter’s boat. 


E MIRROR 


59 

“The . ned. “He’s put her out 

*f business.” 

Verplanck, chagrined, had been going over his 
•own engine feverishly. “Do you see that?” he 
asked suddenly, holding up in the light of a lantern 
a little nut which he had picked out of the compli- 
cated machinery. “It never belonged to this engine. 
Some one placed it there, knowing it would work its 
way into a vital part with the vibration.” 

Who was the person, the only one who could have 
done it? The answer was on my lips, but I re- 
pressed it. Mrs. Verplanck herselt had been bend- 
ing over the engine when last I saw her. All at 
once it flashed over me that she knew more about 
the phantom bandit than she had admitted. Yet 
what possible object could she have had in putting 
the Streamline out of commission? 

My mind was working rapidly, piecing together 
the fragmentary facts. The remark of Kennedy, 
long before, instantly assumed new significance. 
What were the possibilities of blackmail in the right 
sort of evidence? The yeggman had been after 
what was more valuable than jewels — letters! 
Whose? Suddenly I saw the situation. Carter had 
not been robbed at all. He was in league with the 
robber. That much was a blind to divert suspicion. 
He was a lawyer — some one’s lawyer. I recalled the 
message about letters and evidence, and as I did so 
there came to mind a picture of Carter and the 
woman he had been dancing with. In return for 
his inside information about the jewels of the 
wealthy homes of Bluffwood, the yeggman was to 
get something of interest and importance to his 
client. 

The situation called for instant action. Yet what 


60 THE WAR TERROR 

could we do, marooned on the other side of the 
bay? 

From the Club dock a long finger of light swept 
out into the night, plainly enough near the dock, but 
diffused and disclosing nothing in the distance. 
Armand had trained it down the bay in the direction 
we had taken, but by the time the beam reached us 
it was so weak that it was lost. 

Craig had leaped up on the Carter dock and was 
capping and uncapping with the brass cover the 
package which contained the triple mirror. 

Still in the distance I could see the wide path of 
light, aimed toward us, but of no avail. 

“What are you doing?” I asked. 

“Using the triple mirror to signal to Armand. It 
is something better than wireless. Wireless requires 
heavy and complicated apparatus. This is portable, 
heatless, almost weightless, a source of light de- 
pending for its power on another source of light at 
a great distance.” 

I wondered how Armand could ever detect its 
feeble ray. 

“Even in the case of a rolling ship,” Kennedy 
continued, alternately covering and uncovering the 
mirror, “the beam of light which this mirror reflects 
always goes back, unerring, to its source. It would 
do so from an aeroplane, so high in the air that it 
could not be located. The returning beam is in- 
visible to anyone not immediately in the path of the 
ray, and the ray always goes to the observer. It 
is simply a matter of pure mathematics practically 
applied. The angle of incidence equals the angle of 
reflection. There is not a variation of a foot in 
two miles.” 


THE TRIPLE MIRROR 6 1 

“What message are you sending him?” asked 
V erplanck. 

“To tell Mrs. Hollingsworth to hurry home im- 
mediately,” Kennedy replied, still flashing* the let- 
ters according to his code. 

“Mrs. Hollingsworth?” repeated Verplanck, 
looking up. 

“Yes. This hydroaeroplane yeggman is after 
something besides jewels to-night. Were those let- 
ters that were stolen from you the only ones you 
had in the safe?” 

Verplanck looked up quickly. “Yes, yes. Of 
course.” 

“You had none from a woman ” 

“No,” he almost shouted. Of a sudden it seemed 
to dawn on him what Kennedy was driving at — the 
robbery of his own house with no loss except of a 
packet of letters on business, followed by the attempt 
on Mrs. Hollingsworth. “Do you think I’d keep 
dynamite, even in the safe?” 

To hide his confusion he had turned and was 
bending again over the engine. 

“How is it?” asked Kennedy, his signaling over. 

“Able to run on four cylinders and one propeller,” 
replied Verplanck. 

“Then let’s try her. Watch the engine. I’ll take 
the wheel.” 

Limping along, the engine skipping and missing, 
the once peerless Streamline started back across the 
bay. Instead of heading toward the club, Kennedy 
pointed her bow somewhere between that and Ver- 
planck’s. 

“I wish Armand would get busy,” he remarked, 
after glancing now and then in the direction of the f 
club. “What can be the matter?” 


6 2 


THE WAR TERROR 

“What do you mean?” I asked. 

There came the boom as if of a gun far away in 
the direction in which he was looking, then another. 

“Oh, there it is. Good fellow. I suppose he had 
to deliver my message to Mrs. Hollingsworth him- 
self first.” 

From every quarter showed huge balls of fire, 
rising from the sea, as it were, with a brilliantly 
luminous flame. 

“What is it?” I asked, somewhat startled. 

“A German invention for use at night against tor- 
pedo and aeroplane attacks. From that mortar 
Armand has shot half a dozen bombs of phosphide 
of calcium which are hurled far into the darkness. 
They are so constructed that they float after a short 
plunge and are ignited on contact by the action of 
the salt water itself.” 

It was a beautiful pyrotechnic display, lighting up 
the shore and hills of the bay as if by an unearthly 
flare. 

“There’s that thing now!” exclaimed Kennedy. 

In the glow we could see a peculiar, birdlike fig- 
ure flying through the air over toward the Hollings- 
worth house. It was the hydroaeroplane. 

Out from the little stretch of lawn under the ac- 
centuated shadow of the trees, she streaked into 
the air, swaying from side to side as the pilot oper- 
ated the stabilizers on the ends of the planes to coun- 
teract the puffs of wind off the land. 

How could she ever be stopped? 

The Streamline } halting and limping, though she 
was, had almost crossed the bay before the light 
bombs had been fired by Armand. Every moment 
brought the flying boat nearer. 

She swerved. Evidently the pilot had seen us at 


THE TRIPLE MIRROR 63 

last and realized who we were. I was so engrossed 
watching the thing that I had not noticed that Ken- 
nedy had given the wheel to Verplanck and was 
standing in the bow, endeavoring to sight what 
looked like a huge gun. 

In rapid succession half a dozen shots rang out. 
I fancied I could almost hear the ripping and tear- 
ing of the tough rubber-coated silken wings of the 
hydroaeroplane as the wind widened the perfora- 
tion the gun had made. 

She had not been flying high, but now she swooped 
down almost like a gull, seeking to rest on the water. 
We were headed toward her now, and as the flying 
boat sank I saw one of the passengers rise in his seat, 
swing his arm, and far out something splashed in 
the bay. 

On the water, with wings helpless, the flying boat 
was no match for the Streamline now. She struck 
at an acute angle, rebounded in the air for a mo- 
ment, and with a hiss skittered along over the waves, 
planing with the help of her exhaust under the step 
of the boat. 

There she was, a hull, narrow, scow-bowed, like a 
hydroplane, with a long pointed stern and a cockpit 
for two men, near the bow. There were two wide, 
winglike planes, on a light latticework of wood 
covered with silk, trussed and wired like a kite 
frame, the upper plane about five feet above the 
lower, which was level with the boat deck. We 
could see the eight-cylindered engine which drove a 
two-bladed wooden propeller, and over the stern 
were the air rudder and the horizontal planes. 
There she was, the hobbled steed now of the phan- 
tom bandit who had accomplished the seemingly 
impossible. 


6 4 


THE WAR TERROR 


In spite of everything, however, the flying boat 
reached the shore a trifle ahead of us. As she did so 
both figures in her jumped, and one disappeared 
quickly up the bank, leaving the other alone. 

“Verplanck, McNeill — get him/’ cried Kennedy, 
as our own boat grated on the beach. “Come, Wal- 
ter, we’ll take the other one.” 

The man had seen that there was no safety in 
flight. Down the shore he stood, without a hat, his 
hair blown pompadour by the wind. 

As we approached Carter turned superciliously, 
unbuttoning his bulky khaki life preserver jacket. 

“Well?” he asked coolly. 

Not for a moment did Kennedy allow the assumed 
coolness to take him back, knowing that Carter’s 
delay did not cover the retreat of the other man. 

“So,” Craig exclaimed, “you are the — the air 
pirate?” 

Carter disdained to reply. 

“It was you who suggested the millionaire house- 
holds, full of jewels, silver and gold, only half 
guarded; you, who knew the habits of the people; 
you, who traded that information in return for an- 
other piece of thievery by your partner, Australia 
Mac — -Wickham he called himself here in Bluff- 
wood. It was you ” 

A car drove up hastily, and I noted that we were 
still on the Hollingsworth estate. Mrs. Hollings- 
worth had seen us and had driven over toward us. 

“Montgomery!” she cried, startled. 

“Yes,” said Kennedy quickly, “air pirate and law- 
yer for Mrs. Verplanck in the suit which she con- 
templated bringing ” 

Mrs. Hollingsworth grew pale under the ghastly, 
flickering light from the bay. 


THE TRIPLE MIRROR 65 

“Oh!” she cried, realizing at what Kennedy 
hinted, “the letters!” 

“At the bottom of the harbor, now,” said Ken- 
nedy. “Mr. Verplanck tells me he has destroyed 
his. The past is blotted out as far as that is con- 
cerned. The future is — for you three to determine. 
For the present I’ve caught a yeggman and a black- 
mailer.” 


CHAPTER VII 


THE WIRELESS WIRETAPPERS 

Kennedy did not wait at Bluffwood longer than 
was necessary. It was easy enough now to silence 
Montgomery Carter, and the reconciliation of the 
Verplancks was assured. In the Star I made the 
case appear at the time to involve merely the cap- 
ture of Australia Mac. 

When I dropped into the office the next day as 
usual, I found that I had another assignment that 
would take me out on Long Island. The story 
looked promising and I was rather pleased to get it. 

“Bound for Seaville, I’ll wager,” sounded a fa- 
miliar voice in my ear, as I hurried up to the train 
entrance at the Long Island corner of the Penn- 
sylvania Station. 

I turned quickly, to find Kennedy just behind me, 
breathless and perspiring. 

“Er — yes,” I stammered in surprise at seeing him 
so unexpectedly, “but where did you come from? 
How did you know?” 

“Let me introduce Mr. Jack Waldon,” he went 
on, as we edged our way toward the gate, “the 
brother of Mrs. Tracy Edwards, who disappeared 
so strangely from the houseboat Lucie last night at 
Seaville. That is the case you’re going to write up, 
isn’t it?” 

It was then for the first time that I noticed 

66 


THE WIRELESS WIRETAPPERS 67 

the excited young man beside Kennedy was really 
his companion. 

I shook hands with Waldon, who gave me a grip 
that was both a greeting and an added impulse in 
our general direction through the wicket. 

‘‘Might have known the Star would assign you to 
this Edwards case,” panted Kennedy, mopping his 
forehead, for the heat in the terminal was oppressive 
jmd the crowd, though not large, was closely packed. 
n Mr. Jameson is my right-hand man,” he explained 
to Waldon, taking us each by the arm and urging us 
forward. “Waldon was afraid we might miss the 
train or I should have tried to get you, Walter, at 
the office.” 

It was all done so suddenly that they quite took 
away what remaining breath I had, as we settled 
ourselves to swelter in the smoker instead of in the 
concourse. I did not even protest at the matter- 
of-fact assurance with which Craig assumed that his 
deduction as to my destination was correct. 

Waldon, a handsome young fellow in a flannel 
suit and yachting cap somewhat the worse for his 
evidently perturbed state of mind, seemed to eye 
me for the moment doubtfully, in spite of Kennedy’s 
cordial greeting. 

“I’ve had all the first editions of the evening pa- 
pers,” I hinted as we sped through the tunnel, “but 
the stories seemed to be quite the same — pretty 
meager in details.” 

“Yes,” returned Waldon with a glance at Ken- 
nedy, “I tried to keep as much out of the papers as 
I could just now for Lucie’s sake.” 

“You needn’t fear Jameson,” remarked Kennedy. 

He fumbled in his pocket, then paused a moment 


68 THE WAR TERROR 

and shot a glance of inquiry at Waldon, who nodded 
a mute acquiescence to him. 

“There seem to have been a number of very pe- 
culiar disappearances lately,” resumed Kennedy, 
“but this case of Mrs. Edwards is by far the most 
extraordinary. Of course the Star hasn’t had that — 
yet,” he concluded, handing me a sheet of notepaper. 

“Mr. Waldon didn’t give it out, hoping to avoid 
scandal.” 

I took the paper and read eagerly, in a woman’s 
hand: 

“My Dear Miss Fox: I have been down here 
at Seaville on our houseboat, the Lucie, for several 
days for a purpose which now is accomplished. 

“Already I had my suspicions of you, from a 
source which I need not name. Therefore, when the 
Kronprinz got into wireless communication with the 
station at Seaville I determined through our own 
wireless on the Lucie to overhear whether there 
would be any exchange of messages between my hus- 
band and yourself. 

“I was able to overhear the whole thing and I 
want you to know that your secret is no longer a 
secret from me, and that I have already told Mr. 
Edwards that I know it. You ruin his life by your 
intimacy which you seem to want to keep up, al- 
though you know you have no right to do it, but you 
shall not ruin mine. 

“I am thoroughly disillusioned now. I have not 
decided on what steps to take, but ” 

Only a casual glance was necessary to show me 
that the writing seemed to grow more and more 
weak as it progressed, and the note stopped abruptly, 
as if the writer had been suddenly interrupted or 
some new idea had occurred to her. 


THE WIRELESS WIRETAPPERS 69 

Hastily I tried to figure it out. Lucie Waldon, 
as everybody knew, was a famous beauty, a marvel 
of charm and daintiness, slender, with big, soulful, 
wistful eyes. Her marriage to Tracy Edwards, the 
wealthy plunger and stockbroker, had been a great 
social event the year before, and it was reputed at 
the time that Edwards had showered her with jewels 
and dresses to the wonder and talk even of society. 

As for Valerie Fox, I knew she had won quick 
recognition and even fame as a dancer in New York 
during the previous winter, and I recalled reading 
three or four days before that she had just returned 
on the Kronprinz from a trip abroad. 

“I don’t suppose you have had time to see Miss 
Fox,” I remarked. “Where is she?” 

“At Beach Park now, I think,” replied Waldon, 
“ a resort a few miles nearer the city on the south 
shore, where there is a large colony of actors.” 

I handed back the letter to Kennedy. 

“What do you make of it?” he asked, as he folded 
it up and put it back into his pocket. 

“I hardly know what to say,” I replied. “Of 
course there have been rumors, I believe, that all 
was not exactly like a honeymoon still with the 
Tracy Edwardses.” 

“Yes,” returned Waldon slowly, “I know myself 
that there has been some trouble, but nothing defi- 
nite until I found this letter last night in my sister’s 
room. She never said anything about it either to 
mother or myself. They haven’t been much to- 
gether during the summer, and last night when she 
disappeared Tracy was in the city. But I hadn’t 
thought much about it before, for, of course, you 
know he has large financial interests that make him 
keep in pretty close touch with New York and this 


THE WAR TERROR 


70 

summer hasn’t been a particularly good one on the 
stock exchange.” 

“And,” I put in, “a plunger doesn’t always make 
the best of husbands. Perhaps there is temperament 
to be reckoned with here.” 

“There seem to be a good many things to be reck- 
oned with,” Craig considered. “For example, here’s 
a houseboat, the Lucie, a palatial affair, cruising 
about aimlessly, with a beautiful woman on it. She 
gives a little party, in the absence of her husband, 
to her brother, his fiancee and her mother, who visit 
her from his yacht, the Nautilus. They break up, 
those living on the Lucie going to their rooms and 
the rest back to the yacht, which is anchored out fur- 
ther in the deeper water of the bay. 

“Some time in the middle of the night her maid, 
Juanita, finds that she is not in her room. Her 
brother is summoned back from his yacht and finds 
that she has left this pathetic, unfinished letter. But 
otherwise there is no trace of her. Her husband is 
notified and hurries out there, but he can find no 
clue. Meanwhile, Mr. Waldon, in despair, hurries 
down to the city to engage me quietly.” 

“You remember I told you,” suggested Waldon, 
“that my sister hadn’t been feeling well for several 
days. In fact it seemed that the sea air wasn’t doing 
her much good, and some one last night suggested 
that she try the mountains.” 

“Had there been anything that would foreshadow 
the — er — disappearance?” asked Kennedy. 

“Only as I say, that for two or three days she 
seemed to be listless, to be sinking by slow and easy 
stages into a sort of vacant, moody state of ill 
health.” 

“She had a doctor, I suppose?” I asked. 


THE WIRELESS WIRETAPPERS 7 s 

“Yes, Dr. Jermyn, Tracy’s own personal physi* 
dan came down from the city several days ago.” 

“What did he say?” 

“He simply said that it was congestion of the 
lungs. As far as he could see there was no apparent 
cause for it. I don’t think he was very enthusiastic 
about the mountain air idea. The fact is he was 
like a good many doctors under the circumstances, 
noncommittal — wanted her under observation, and 
all that sort of thing.” 

“What’s your opinion?” I pressed Craig. “Do 
you think she has run away?” 

“Naturally, I’d rather not attempt to say yet,” 
Craig replied cautiously. “But there are several 
possibilities. Yes, she might have left the house- 
boat in some other boat, of course. Then there is 
the possibility of accident. It was a hot night. She 
might have been leaning from the window and have 
lost her balance. I have even thought of drugs, that 
she might have taken something in her despondency 
and have fallen overboard while under the influence 
of it. Then, of course, there are the two deductions 
that everyone has made already — either suicide or 
murder.” 

Waldon had evidently been turning something 
over in his mind. 

“There was a wireless outfit aboard the house- 
boat,” he ventured at length. 

“What of that?” I asked, wondering why he was 
changing the subject so abruptly. 

“Why, only this,” he replied. “I have been read- 
ing about wireless a good deal lately, and if the 
theories of some scientists are correct, the wfireless 
age is not without its dangers as well as its won- 
ders. I recall reading not long ago of a German 


THE WAR TERROR 


72 

professor who says there is no essential difference 
between wireless waves and the X-rays, and we know 
the terrible physical effects of X-rays. I believe he 
estimated that only one three hundred millionth part 
of the electrical energy generated by sending a mes- 
sage from one station to another near by is actually 
used up in transmitting the message. The rest is 
dispersed in the atmosphere. There must be a good 
deal of such stray electrical energy about Seaville. 
Isn’t it possible that it might hit some one some- 
where who was susceptible?” 

Kennedy said nothing. Waldon’s was at least a 
novel idea, whether it was plausible or not. The 
only way to test it out, as far as I could determine, 
was to see whether it fitted with the facts after a 
careful investigation of the case itself. 

It was still early in the day and the trains were 
not as crowded as they would be later. Conse- 
quently our journey was comfortable enough and we 
found ourselves at last at the little vine-covered 
station at Seaville. 

One could almost feel that the gay summer col- 
ony was in a state of subdued excitement. As we 
left the quaint station and walked down the main 
street to the town wharf where we expected some 
one would be waiting for us, it seemed as if the mys- 
terious disappearance of the beautiful Mrs. Edwards 
had put a damper on the life of the place. In the 
hotels there were knots of people evidently discuss- 
ing the affair, for as we passed we could tell by their 
faces that they recognized us. One or two bowed 
and would have joined us, if Waldon had given any 
encouragement. But he did not stop, and we kept 
on down the street quickly. 

I myself began to feel the spell of mystery about 


THE WIRELESS WIRETAPPERS 73 

the case as I had not felt it among the distractions 
of the city. Perhaps I imagined it, but there even 
seemed to be something strange about the houseboat 
which we could descry at anchor far down the bay 
as we approached the wharf. 

We were met, as Waldon had arranged, by a 
high-powered runabout, the tender to his own yacht, 
a slim little craft of mahogany and brass, driven 
like an automobile, and capable of perhaps twenty- 
five or thirty miles an hour. We jumped in and 
were soon skimming over the waters of the bay like 
a skipping stone. 

It was evident that Waldon was much relieved at 
having been able to bring assistance, in which he had 
as much confidence as he reposed in Kennedy. At 
any rate it was something to be nearing the scene of 
action again. 

The Lucie was perhaps seventy feet long and a 
most attractive craft, with a hull yachty in appear- 
ance and of a type which could safely make long 
runs along the coast, a stanch, seaworthy boat, of 
course without the speed of the regularly designed 
yacht, but more than making up in comfort for 
those on board what was lost in that way. Waldon 
pointed out with obvious pride his own trim yacht 
swinging gracefully at anchor a half mile or so 
away. 

As we approached the houseboat I looked her 
over carefully. One of the first things I noticed was 
that there rose from the roof the primitive inverted 
V aerial of a wireless telegraph. I thought imme- 
diately of the unfinished letter and its contents, and 
shaded my eyes as I took a good look at the power- 
ful transatlantic station on the spit of sand perhaps 
three or four miles distant, with its tall steel masts 
6 


74 THE WAR TERROR 

of the latest inverted L type and the cluster of little 
houses below, in which the operators and the plant 
were. 

Waldon noticed what I was looking at, and re- 
marked, “It’s a wonderful station — and well worth 
a visit, if you have the time — one of the most power- 
ful on the coast, I understand.” 

“How did the Lucie come to be equipped with 
wireless?” asked Craig quickly. “It’s a little un- 
usual for a private boat.” 

“Mr. Edwards had it done when she was built,” 
explained Waldon. “His idea was to use it to keep 
in touch with the stock market on trips.” 

“And it has proved effective?” asked Craig. 

“Oh, yes — that is, it was all right last winter when 
he went on a short cruise down in Florida. This 
summer he hasn’t been on the boat long enough to 
use it much.” 

“Who operates it?” 

“He used to hire a licensed operator, although 1 
believe the engineer, Pedersen, understands the 
thing pretty well and could use it if necessary.” 

“Do you think it was Pedersen who used it for 
Mrs. Edwards?” asked Kennedy. 

“I really don’t know,” confessed Waldon. “Pe- 
dersen denies absolutely that he has touched the 
thing for weeks. I want you to quiz him. I wasn’t 
able to get him to admit a thing.” 


CHAPTER VIII 


THE HOUSEBOAT MYSTERY 

We had by this time swung around to the side 
of the houseboat. I realized as we mounted the 
ladder that the marine gasoline engine had materi- 
ally changed the old-time houseboat from a mere 
scow or barge with a low flat house on it, moored 
in a bay or river, and only with difficulty and ex- 
pense towed from one place to another. Now the 
houseboat was really a fair-sized yacht. 

The Lucie was built high in order to give plenty 
of accommodation for the living quarters. The state- 
rooms, dining rooms and saloon were really rooms, 
with seven or eight feet of head room, and furnished 
just as one would find in a tasteful and expensive 
house. 

Down in the hull, of course, was the gasoline mo- 
tor which drove the propeller, so that when the 
owner wanted a change of scene all that was neces- 
sary was to get up anchor, start the motor and navi- 
gate the yacht-houseboat to some other harbor. 

Edwards himself met us on the deck. He was a 
tall man, with a red face, a man of action, of out- 
door life, apparently a hard worker and a hard 
player. It was quite evident that he had been wait- 
ing for the return of Waldon anxiously. 

“You find us considerably upset, Professor Ken- 

75 


76 THE WAR TERROR 

nedy,” he greeted Craig, as his brother-in-law in- 
troduced us. 

Edwards turned and led the way toward the sa- 
loon. As he entered and bade us be seated in the 
costly cushioned wicker chairs I noticed how sump- 
tuously it was furnished, and particularly its me- 
chanical piano, its phonograph and the splendid 
hardwood floor which seemed to invite one to dance 
in the cool breeze that floated across from one set 
of open windows to the other. And yet in spite of 
everything, there was that indefinable air of some- 
thing lacking, as in a house from which the woman 
is gone. 

“You were not here last night, I understand,” re- 
marked Kennedy, taking in the room at a glance. 

“Unfortunately, no,” replied Edwards, “Busi- 
ness has kept me with my nose pretty close to the 
grindstone this summer. Waldon called me up in 
the middle of the night, however, and I started down 
in my car, which enabled me to get here before the 
first train. I haven’t been able to do a thing since 
I got here except just wait — wait — wait. I confess 
that I don’t know what else to do. Waldon seemed 
to think we ought to have some one down here — 
and I guess he was right. Anyhow, I’m glad to see 
you.” 

I watched Edwards keenly. For the first time I 
realized that I had neglected to ask Waldon whether 
he had seen the unfinished letter. The question was 
unnecessary. It was evident that he had not. 

“Let me see, Waldon, if I’ve got this thing 
straight,” Edwards went on, pacing restlessly up 
and down the saloon. “Correct me if I haven’t. 
Last night, as I understand it, there was a sort of 
little family party here, you and Miss Yerrall and 


THE HOUSEBOAT MYSTERY 77 

your mother from the Nautilus , and Mrs. Edwards 
and Dr. Jermyn.” 

“Yes,” replied Waldon with, I thought, a touch 
of defiance at the words “family party.” He paused 
as if he would have added that the Nautilus would 
have been more congenial, anyhow, then added, “We 
danced a little bit, all except Lucie. She said she 
wasn’t feeling any too well.” 

Edwards had paused by the door. “If you’ll ex- 
cuse me a minute,” he said, “I’ll call Jermyn and 
Mrs. Edwards’ maid, Juanita. You ought to go 
over the whole thing immediately, Professor Ken- 
nedy.” 

“Why didn’t you say anything about the letter to 
him?” asked Kennedy under his breath. 

“What was the use?” returned Waldon. “I didn’t 
know how he’d take it. Besides, I wanted your ad- 
vice on the whole thing. Do you want to show it 
to him?” 

“Perhaps it’s just as well,” ruminated Kennedy. 
“It may be possible to clear the thing up without 
involving anybody’s name. At any rate, some one 
is coming down the passage this way.” 

Edwards entered with Dr. Jermyn, a clean-shaven 
man, youthful in appearance, yet approaching mid- 
dle age. I had heard of him before. He had 
studied several years abroad and had gained consid- 
erable reputation since his return to America. 

Dr. Jermyn shook hands with us cordially enough, 
made some passing comment on the tragedy, and 
stood evidently waiting for us to disclose our hands. 

“You have been Mrs. Edwards’ physician for 
some time, I believe?” queried Kennedy, fencing for 
an opening. 


7 8 THE WAR TERROR 

“Only since her marriage,” replied the doctor 
briefly. 

“She hadn’t been feeling well for several days, 
had she?” ventured Kennedy again. 

“No,” replied Dr. Jermyn quickly. “I doubt 
whether I can add much to what you already know. 
I suppose Mr. Waldon has told you about her ill- 
ness. The fact is, I suppose her maid Juanita will 
be able to tell you really more than I can.” 

I could not help feeling that Dr. Jermyn showed 
a great deal of reluctance in talking. 

“You have been with her several days, though, 
haven’t you?” 

“Four days, I think. She was complaining of 
feeling nervous and telegraphed me to come down 
here. I came prepared to stay over night, but Mr. 
Edwards happened to run down that day, too, and 
he asked me if I wouldn’t remain longer. My prac- 
tice in the summer is such that I can easily leave it 
with my assistant in the city, so I agreed. Really, 
that is about all I can say. I don’t know yet what 
was the matter with Mrs. Edwards, aside from the 
nervousness which seemed to be of some time stand- 
ing.” 

He stood facing us, thoughtfully stroking his chin, 
as a very pretty and petite maid nervously entered 
and stood facing us in the doorway. 

“Come in, Juanita,” encouraged Edwards. “I 
want you to tell these gentlemen just what you told 
me about discovering that Madame had gone — and 
anything else that you may recall now.” 

. “It was Juanita who discovered that Madame was 
gone, you know,” put in Waldon. 

“How did you discover it?” prompted Craig. 

“It was very hot,” replied the maid, “and often 


THE HOUSEBOAT MYSTERY 79 

on hot nights I would come in and fan Madame since 
she was so wakeful. Last night I went to the door 
and knocked. There was no reply. I called to her, 
‘Madame, madame.’ Still there was no answer. 
The worst I supposed was that she had fainted. I 
continued to call.” 

“The door was locked?” inquired Kennedy. 

“Yes, sir. My call aroused the others on the 
boat. Dr. Jermyn came and he broke open the door 
with his shoulder. But the room was empty. M*a- 
dame was gone.” * 

“How about the windows?” asked Kennedy. 

“Open. They were always open these nights. 
Sometimes Madame would sit by the window when 
there was not much breeze.” 

“I should like to see the room,” remarked Craig, 
with an inquiring glance at Edwards. 

“Certainly,” he answered, leading the way down 
a corridor. 

Mrs. Edwards’ room was on the starboard side, 
with wide windows instead of portholes. It was fur- 
nished magnificently and there was little about it 
that suggested the nautical, except the view from the 
window. 

“The bed had not been slept in,” Edwards re* 
marked as we looked about curiously. 

Kennedy walked over quickly to the wide series 
of windows before which was a leather-cushioned 
window seat almost level with the window, several 
feet above the level of the water. It was by this 
window, evidently, that Juanita meant that Mrs. Ed- 
wards often sat. It was a delightful position, but I 
could readily see that it would be comparatively easy 
for anyone accidentally or purposely to fall. 

“I think myself,” Waldon remarked to Kennedy, 


8o 


THE WAR TERROR 

“that it must have been from the open window that 
she made her way to the outside. It seems that all 
agree that the door was locked, while the window 
was wide open.” 

“There had been no sound — no cry to alarm 
you?” shot out Kennedy suddenly to Juanita. 

“No, sir, nothing. I could not sleep myself, and 
I thought of Madame.” 

“You heard nothing?” he asked of Dr. Jermyn. 

“Nothing until I heard the maid call,” he replied 
briefly. 

Mentally I ran over again Kennedy’s first list of 
possibilities — taken off by another boat, accident, 
drugs, suicide, murder. 

Was there, I asked myself, sufficient reason for 
suicide? The letter seemed to me to show too proud 
a spirit for that. In fact the last sentence seemed 
to show that she was contemplating the surest 
method of revenge, rather than surrender. As for 
accident, why should a person fall overboard from 
a large houseboat into a perfectly calm harbor? 
Then, too, there had been no outcry. Somehow, I 
could not seem to lit any of the theories in with the 
facts. Evidently it was like many another case, one 
in which we, as yet, had insufficient data for a con- 
clusion. 

Suddenly I recalled the theory that Waldon him- 
self had advanced regarding the wireless, either 
from the boat itself or from the wireless station. 
For the moment, at least, it seemed plausible that 
she might have been seated at the window, that she 
might have been affected by escaped wireless, or by 
electrolysis. I knew that some physicians had de- 
scribed a disease which they attributed to wireless, 
a sort of anemia with a marked diminution in the 


THE HOUSEBOAT MYSTERY 81 

number of red corpuscles in the blood, due partly 
to the overetherization of the air by reason of the 
alternating currents used to generate the waves. 

“I should like now to inspect the little wireless 
plant you have here on the Lucie ” remarked 
Kennedy. “I noticed the mast as we were approach- 
ing a few minutes ago.” 

I had turned at the sound of his voice in time to 
catch Edwards and Dr. Jermyn eyeing each other 
furtively. Did they know about the letter, after all, 
I wondered? Was each in doubt about just how 
much the other knew? 

There was no time to pursue these speculations. 
“Certainly,” agreed Mr. Edwards promptly, leading 
the way. 

Kennedy seemed keenly interested in inspecting 
the little wireless plant, which was of a curious type 
and not exactly like any that I had seen before. 

“Wireless apparatus,” he remarked, as he looked 
it over, “is divided into three parts, the source of 
power whether battery or dynamo, the making and 
sending of wireless waves, including the key, spark, 
condenser and tuning coil, and the receiving appara- 
tus, head telephones, antennae, ground and detector.” 

Pedersen, the engineer, came in while we were 
looking the plant over, but seemed uncommunicative 
to all Kennedy’s efforts to engage him in conversa- 
tion. 

“I see,” remarked Kennedy, “that it is a very 
compact system with facilities for a quick change 
from one wave length to another.” 

“Yes,” grunted Pedersen, as averse to talking, 
evidently, as others on the Lucie. 

“Spark gap, quenched type,” I heard Kennedy 
mutter almost to himself, with a view to showing 


82 


THE WAR TERROR 

Pedersen that he knew something about it. “Break 
system relay — operator can overhear any interfer- 
ence while transmitting — transformation by a single 
throw of a six-point switch which tunes the oscillat- 
ing and open circuits to resonance. Very clever — 
very efficient. By the way, Pedersen, are you the 
only person aboard who can operate this?” 

“How should I know?” he answered almost 
surlily. 

“You ought to know, if anybody,” answered Ken- 
nedy unruffled. “I know that it has been operated 
within the past few days.” 

Pedersen shrugged his shoulders. “You might 
ask the others aboard,” was all he said. “Mr. Ed- 
wards pays me to operate it only for himself, when 
he has no other operator.” 

Kennedy did not pursue the subject, evidently 
from fear of saying too much just at present. 

“I wonder if there is anyone else who could have 
operated it,” said Waldon, as we mounted again to 
the deck. 

“I don’t know,” replied Kennedy, pausing on the 
way up. “You haven’t a wireless on the Nautilus, 
have you?” 

Waldon shook his head. “Never had any par- 
ticular use for it myself,” he answered. 

“You say that Miss Verrall and her mother have 
gone back to the city?” pursued Kennedy, taking care 
that as before the others were out of earshot. 

“Yes.” 

“Pd like to stay with you to-night, then,” decided 
Kennedy. “Might we go over with you now? 
There doesn’t seem to be anything more I can do 
here, unless we get some news about Mrs. Ed- 
wards.” 


THE HOUSEBOAT MYSTERY 83 

Waldon seemed only too glad to agree, and no 
one on the Lucie insisted on our staying. 

We arrived at the Nautilus a few minutes later, 
and while we were lunching Kennedy dispatched the 
tender to the Marconi station with a note. 

It was early in the afternoon when the tender re- 
turned with several packages and coils of wire. 
Kennedy immediately set to work on the Nautilus 
stretching out some of the wire. 

“What is it you are planning?’’ asked Waldon, 
to whom every action of Kennedy seemed to be a 
mystery of the highest interest. 

“Improvising my own wireless,” he replied, not 
averse to talking to the young man to whom he 
seemed to have taken a fancy. “For short dis- 
tances, you know, it isn’t necessary to construct an 
aerial pole or even to use outside wires to receive 
messages. All that is needed is to use just a few 
wires stretched inside a room. The rest is just the 
apparatus.” 

I was quite as much interested as Waldon. “In 
wireless,” he went on, “the signals are not sent in 
one direction, but in all, so that a person within 
range of the ethereal disturbance can get them if 
only he has the necessary receiving apparatus. This 
apparatus need not be so elaborate and expensive as 
used to be thought needful if a sensitive detector is 
employed, and I have sent over to the station for a 
new piece of apparatus which I knew they had in al- 
most any Marconi station. Why, I’ve got wireless 
signals using only twelve feet of number eighteen 
copper wire stretched across a room and grounded 
with a water pipe. You might even use a wire mat- 
tress on an iron bedstead.” 


84 THE WAR TERROR 

“Can’t they find out by — er, interference?” 1 
asked, repeating the term I had so often heard. 

Kennedy laughed. “No, not for radio apparatus 
which merely receives radiograms and is not 
equipped for sending. I am setting up only one side 
of a wireless outfit here. All I want to do is to hear 
what is being said. I don’t care about saying any? 
thing.” 

He unwrapped another package which had been 
loaned to him by the radio station and we watched 
him curiously as he tested it and set it up. Some 
parts of it I recognized such as the very sensitive 
microphone, and another part I could have sworn 
was a phonograph cylinder, though Craig was so 
busy testing his apparatus that now we could not 
ask questions. 

It was late in the afternoon when he finished, and 
we had just time to run up to the dock at Seaville 
and stop off at the Lucie to see if anything had hap- 
pened in the intervening hours before dinner. There 
was nothing, except that I found time to file a mes- 
sage to the Star and meet several fellow newspaper 
men who had been sent down by other papers on 
the chance of picking up a good story. 

We had the Nautilus to ourselves, and as she was 
a very comfortable little craft, we really had a very 
congenial time, a plunge over her side, a good din- 
ner, and then a long talk out on deck under the 
stars, in which we went over every phase of the 
case. As we discussed it, Waldon followed keenly, 
and it was quite evident from his remarks that he 
had come to the conclusion that Dr. Jermyn at least 
knew more than he had told about the case. 

Still, the day wore away with no solution yet of 
the mystery. 


CHAPTER IX 


THE RADIO DETECTIVE 

It was early the following morning when a launch 
drew up beside the Nautilus. In it were Edwards 
and Dr. Jermyn, wildly excited. 

“What’s the matter?” called out Waldon. 

“They — they have found the body,” Edwards 
blurted out. 

Waldon paled and clutched the rail. He had 
thought the world of his sister, and not until the last 
moment had he given up hope that perhaps she 
might be found to have disappeared in some other 
way than had become increasingly evident. 

“Where?” cried Kennedy. “Who?” 

“Over on Ten Mile Beach,” answered Edwards. 
“Some fishermen who had been out on a cruise and 
hadn’t heard the story. They took the body to 
town, and there it was recognized. They sent word 
out to us immediately.” 

Waldon had already spun the engine of his ten- 
der, which was about the fastest thing afloat about 
Seaville, had taken Edwards over, and we were off 
in a cloud of spray, the nose of the boat many inches 
above the surface of the water. 

In the little undertaking establishment at Seaville 
lay the body of the beautiful young matron about 
whom so much anxiety had been felt. I could not 
help thinking what an end was this for the incom* 

85 


86 THE WAR TERROR 

parable beauty. At the very height of her brief 
career the poor little woman’s life had been sud- 
denly snuffed out. But by what? The body had 
been found, but the mystery had been far from 
solved. 

As Kennedy bent over the body, I heard him 
murmur to himself, “She had everything — every- 
thing except happiness.” 

“Was it drowning that caused her death?” asked 
Kennedy of the local doctor, who also happened to 
be coroner and had already arrived on the scene. 

The doctor shook his head. “I don’t know,” he 
said doubtfully. “There was congestion of the 
lungs — but I — I can’t say but what she might have 
been dead before she fell or was thrown into the 
water.” 

Dr. Jermyn stood on one side, now and then put- 
ting in a word, but for the most part silent unless 
spoken to. Kennedy, however, was making a most 
minute examination. 

As he turned the beautiful head, almost rever- 
ently, he saw something that evidently attracted his 
attention. I was standing next to him and, between 
us, I think we cut off the view of the others. There 
on the back of the neck, carefully, had been smeared 
something transparent, almost skin-like, which had 
easily escaped the attention of the rest. 

Kennedy tried to pick it off, but only succeeded in 
pulling off a very minute piece to which the flesh 
seemed to adhere. 

“That’s queer,” he whispered to me. “Water, 
naturally, has no effect on it, else it would have 
been washed off long before. Walter,” he added, 
“just slip across the street quietly to the drug store 
and get me a piece of gauze soaked with acetone.” 


THE RADIO DETECTIVE 87 

As quickly and unostentatiously as I could I did 
so and handed him the wet cloth, contriving at the 
same time to add Waldon to our barrier, for I could 
see that Kennedy was anxious to be observed as little 
as possible. 

“What is it?” I whispered, as he rubbed the 
transparent skin-like stuff off, and dropped the gauze 
into his pocket. 

“A sort of skin varnish,” he remarked under his 
breath, “waterproof and so adhesive that it resists 
pulling off even with a knife without taking the 
cuticle with it.” 

Beneath, as the skin varnish slowly dissolved un- 
der his gentle rubbing, he had disclosed several very 
small reddish spots, like little cuts that had been 
made by means of a very sharp instrument. As he 
did so, he gave them a hasty glance, turned the now 
stony beautiful head straight again, stood up, and 
resumed his talk with the coroner, who was evidently 
getting more and more bewildered by the case. 

Edwards, who had completed the arrangements 
with the undertaker for the care of the body as soon 
as the coroner released it, seemed completely un- 
nerved. 

“Jermyn,” he said to the doctor, as he turned 
away and hid his eyes, “I can’t stand this. The 
undertaker wants some stuff from the — er — boat,” 
his voice broke over the name which had been hers. 
“Will you get it for me? I’m going up to a hotel 
here, and I’ll wait for you there. But I can’t go out 
to the boat — yet.” 

“I think Mr. Waldon will be glad to take you 
out in his tender,” suggested Kennedy. “Besides, I 
feel that I’d like a little fresh air as a bracer, too, 
after such a shock.” 


88 


THE WAR TERROR 

“What were those little cuts?” I asked as Wal- 
don and Dr. Jermyn preceded us through the crowd 
outside to the pier. 

“Some one,” he answered in a low tone, “has 
severed the pneumogastric nerves.” 

“The pneumogastric nerves?” I repeated. 

“Yes, the vagus or wandering nerve, the so-called 
tenth cranial nerve. Unlike the other cranial nerves, 
which are concerned with the special senses or dis- 
tributed to the skin and muscles of the head and 
neck, the vagus, as its name implies, strays down- 
ward into the chest and abdomen supplying branches 
to the throat, lungs, heart and stomach and forms 
an important connecting link between the brain and 
the sympathetic nervous system.” 

We had reached the pier, and a nod from Ken- 
nedy discouraged further conversation on the sub- 
ject. 

A few minutes later we had reached the Lucie 
and gone up over her side. Kennedy waited until 
Jermyn had disappeared into the room of Mrs. Ed- 
wards to get what the undertaker had desired. A 
moment and he had passed quietly into Dr. Jermyn’ s 
own room, followed by me. Several quick glances 
about told him what not to waste time over, and at 
last his eye fell on a little portable case of medi- 
cines and surgical instruments. He opened it quickly 
and took out a bottle of golden yellow liquid. 

Kennedy smelled it, then quickly painted some on 
the back of his hand. It dried quickly, like an artifi- 
cial skin. He had found a bottle of skin varnish in 
Dr. Jermyn’s own medicine chest! 

We hurried back to the deck, and a few minutes 
later the doctor appeared with a large package. 

“Did you ever hear of coating the skin by a sub- 


THE RADIO DETECTIVE 89 

stance which is impervious to water, smooth and 
elastic?’’ asked Kennedy quietly as Waldon’s tender 
sped along back to Seaville. 

“Why — er, yes,” he said frankly, raising his eyes 
and looking at Craig in surprise. “There have been 
a dozen or more such substances. The best is one 
which I use, made of pyroxylin, the soluble cotton of 
commerce, dissolved in amyl acetate and acetone 
with some other substances that make it perfectly 
sterile. Why do you ask?” 

“Because some one has used a little bit of it to 
cover a few slight cuts on the back of the neck of 
Mrs. Edwards.” 

“Indeed?” he said simply, in a tone of mild sur- 
prise. 

“Yes,” pursued Kennedy. “They seem to me to 
be subcutaneous incisions of the neck with a very 
fine scalpel dividing the two great pneumogastric 
nerves. Of course you know what that would mean 
— the victim would pass away naturally by slow and 
easy stages in three or four days, and all that would 
appear might be congestion of the lungs. They are 
delicate little punctures and elusive nerves to locate, 
but after all it might be done as painlessly, as simply 
and as safely as a barber might remove some dead 
hairs. A country coroner might easily pass over 
such evidence at an autopsy — especially if it was con- 
cealed by skin varnish.” 

I was surprised at the frankness with which Ken- 
nedy spoke, but absolutely amazed at the coolness 
of Jermyn. At first he said absolutely nothing. He 
seemed to be as set in his reticence as he had been 
when we first met. 

I watched him narrowly. Waldon, who was 
driving the boat, had not heard what was said, but 
7 


THE WAR TERROR 


90 

I had, and I could not conceive how anyone could 
take it so calmly. 

Finally Jermyn turned to Kennedy and looked him 
squarely in the eye. “Kennedy,” he said slowly, 
“this is extraordinary — most extraordinary,” then, 
pausing, added, “if true.” 

“There can be no doubt of the truth,” replied 
Kennedy, eyeing Dr. Jermyn just as squarely. 

“What do you propose to do about it?” asked 
the doctor. 

“Investigate,” replied Kennedy simply. “While 
Waldon takes these things up to the undertaker’s, 
we may as well wait here in the boat. I want him 
to stop on the way back for Mr. Edwards. Then 
we shall go out to the Lucie . He must go, whether 
he likes it or not.” 

It was indeed a most peculiar situation as Ken- 
nedy and I sat in the tender with Dr. Jermyn wait- 
ing for Waldon to return with Edwards. Not a 
word was spoken. 

The tenseness of the situation was not relieved by 
the return of Waldon with Edwards. Waldon 
seemed to realize without knowing just what it was, 
that something was about to happen. He drove his 
boat back to the Lucie again in record time. This 
was Kennedy’s turn to be reticent. Whatever it was 
he was revolving in his mind, he answered in 
scarcely more than monosyllables whatever questions 
were put to him. 

“You are not coming aboard?” inquired Edwards 
in surprise as he and Jermyn mounted the steps of 
the houseboat ladder, and Kennedy remained seated 
in the tender. 

“Not yet,” replied Craig coolly. 


THE RADIO DETECTIVE 


9i 

“But I thought you had something to show me. 
Waldon told me you had.” 

“I think I shall have in a short time,” returned 
Kennedy. “We shall be back immediately. I’m just 
going to ask Waldon to run over to the Nautilus 
for a few minutes. We’ll tow back your launch, 
too, in case you need it.” 

Waldon had cast off obediently. 

“There’s one thing sure,” I remarked. “Jermyn 
can’t get away from the Lucie until we return — un- 
less he swims.” 

Kennedy did not seem to pay much attention to 
the remark, for his only reply was: “I’m taking a 
chance by this maneuvering, but I think it will work 
out that I am correct. By the way, Waldon, you 
needn’t put on so much speed. I’m in no great hurry 
to get back. Half an hour will be time enough.” 

“Jermyn? What did you mean by Jermyn?” 
asked Waldon, as we climbed to the deck of the 
Nautilus. 

He had evidently learned, as I had, that it was 
little use to try to quiz Kennedy until he was ready 
to be questioned and had decided to try it on me. 

I had nothing to conceal and I told him quite fully 
all that I knew. Actually, I believe if Jermyn had 
been there, it would have taken both Kennedy and 
myself to prevent violence. As it was I had a verita- 
ble madman to deal with while Kennedy gathered up 
leisurely the wireless outfit he had installed on the 
deck of Waldon’s yacht. It was only by telling him 
that I would certainly demand that Kennedy leave 
him behind if he did not control his feelings that I 
could calm him before Craig had finished his work 
on the yacht. 

Waldon relieved himself by driving the tender 


92 THE WAR TERROR 

back at top speed to the Lucie, and now it seemed 
that Kennedy had no objection to traveling as fast 
as the many-cylindered engine was capable of going. 

As we entered the saloon of the houseboat, I kept 
close watch over Waldon. 

Kennedy began by slipping a record on the phono- 
graph in the corner of the saloon, then facing us 
and addressing Edwards particularly. 

“You may be interested to know, Mr. Edwards,” 
he said, “that your wireless outfit here has been put 
to a use for which you never intended it.” 

No one said anything, but I am sure that some 
one in the room then for the first time began to sus- 
pect what was coming. 

“As you know, by the use of an aerial pole, mes- 
sages may be easily received from any number of 
stations,” continued Craig. “Laws, rules and regu- 
lations may be adopted to shut out interlopers and 
plug busybody ears, but the greater part of what- 
ever is transmitted by the Hertzian waves can be 
snatched down by other wireless apparatus. 

“Down below, in that little room of yours,” went 
on Craig, “might sit an operator with his ear-phone 
clamped to his head, drinking in the news conveyed 
surely and swiftly to him through the wireless sig* 
nals — plucking from the sky secrets of finance and,” 
he added, leaning forward, “love.” 

In his usual dramatic manner Kennedy had swung 
his little audience completely with him. 

“In other words,” he resumed, “it might be used 
for eavesdropping by a wireless wiretapper. Now,” 
he concluded, “I thought that if there was any radio 
detective work being done, I might as well do some, 
too.” 

He toyed for a moment with the phonograph rec- 


THE RADIO DETECTIVE 93 

ord. “I have used,” he explained, “Marconi’s 
radiotelephone, because in connection with his re- 
ceivers Marconi uses phonographic recorders and 
on them has captured wireless telegraph signals over 
hundreds of miles. 

“He has found that it is possible to receive wire- 
less signals, although ordinary records are not loud 
enough, by using a small microphone on the repeat- 
ing diaphragm and connected with a loud-speaking 
telephone. The chief difficulty was to get a micro- 
phone that would carry a sufficient current without 
burning up. There were other difficulties, but they 
have been surmounted and now wireless telegraph 
messages may be automatically recorded and made 
audible.” 

Kennedy started the phonograph, running it 
along, stopping it, taking up the record at a new 
point. 

“Listen,” he exclaimed at length, “there’s some- 
thing interesting, the WXY call — Seaville station — 
from some one on the Lucie only a few minutes ago, 
sending a message to be relayed by Seaville to the 
station at Beach Park. It seems impossible, but 
buzzing and ticking forth is this message from some 
one off this very houseboat. It reads : “Miss Valerie 
Fox, Beach Park. I am suspected of the murder of 
Mrs. Edwards. I appeal to you to help me. You 
must allow me to tell the truth about the messages I 
intercepted for Mrs. Edwards which passed between 
yourself on the ocean and Mr. Edwards in New 
York via Seaville. You rejected me and would 
not let me save you. Now you must save me.” 

Kennedy paused, then added, “The message is 
signed by Dr. Jermyn!” 

At once I saw it all. Jermyn had been the un- 


THE WAR TERROR 


94 

successful suitor for Miss Fox’s affections. But be- 
fore I could piece out the rest of the tragic story, 
Kennedy had started the phonograph record at an 
earlier point which he had skipped for the present. 

“Here’s another record — a brief one — also to 
Valerie Fox from the houseboat: ‘Refuse all in- 
terviews. Deny everything. Will see you as soon 
as present excitement dies down.’ ” 

Before Kennedy could finish, Waldon had leaped 
forward, unable longer to control his feelings. If 
Kennedy had not seized his arm, I verily believe he 
would have cast Dr. Jermyn into the bay into which 
his sister had fallen two nights before in her terri- 
bly weakened condition. 

“Waldon,” cried Kennedy, “for God’s sake, man 
— wait! Don’t you understand? The second mes- 
sage is signed Tracy Edwards.” 

It came as quite as much a shock of surprise to me 
as to Waldon. 

“Don’t you understand?” he repeated. “Your 
sister first learned from Dr. Jermyn what was go- 
ing on. She moved the Lucie down here near Sea- 
ville in order to be near the wireless station when 
the ship bearing her rival, Valerie Fox, got in touch 
with land. With the help of Dr. Jermyn she inter- 
cepted the wireless messages from the Kronprinz 
to the shore — between her husband and Valerie 
Fox.” 

Kennedy was hurrying on now to his irresistible 
conclusion. “She found that he was infatuated with 
the famous stage beauty, that he was planning to 
marry another, her rival. She accused him of it, 
threatened to defeat his plans. He knew she knew 
his unfaithfulness. Instead of being your sister’s 
murderer, Dr. Jermyn was helping her get the evi- 


THE RADIO DETECTIVE 


95 

dence that would save both her and perhaps win 
Miss Fox back to himself.” 

Kennedy had turned sharply on Edwards. 

“But,” he added, with a glance that crushed any 
lingering hope that the truth had been concealed, 
“the same night that Dr. Jermyn arrived here, you 
visited your wife. As she slept you severed the 
nerves that meant life or death to her. Then you 
covered the cuts with the preparation which you 
knew Dr. Jermyn used. You asked him to stay, 
while you went away, thinking that when death came 
you would have a perfect alibi — perhaps a scape- 
goat. Edwards, the radio detective convicts you!” 


CHAPTER X 


THE CURIO SHOP 

Edwards crumpled up as Kennedy and I faced 
him. There was no escape. In fact our greatest 
difficulty was to protect him from Waldon. 

Kennedy’s work in the case was over when we 
had got Edwards ashore and in the hands of the 
authorities. But mine had just begun and it was 
late when I got my story on the wire for the Star. 

I felt pretty tired and determined to make up for 
it by sleeping the next day. It was no use, how- 
ever. 

“Why, what’s the matter, Mrs. Northrop?” I 
heard Kennedy ask as he opened our door the next 
morning, just as I had finished dressing. 

He had admitted a young woman, who greeted 
us with nervous, wide-staring eyes. 

“It’s — it’s about Archer,” she cried, sinking into 
the nearest chair and staring from one to the other 
of us. 

She was the wife of Professor Archer Northrop, 
director of the archeological department at the uni- 
versity. Both Craig and I had known her ever since 
her marriage to Northrop, for she was one of the 
most attractive ladies in the younger set of the 
faculty, to which Craig naturally belonged. Archer 
had been of the class below us in the university. We 


THE CURIO SHOP 


97 

had hazed him, and out of the mild hazing there 
had, strangely enough, grown a strong friendship. 

I recollected quickly that Northrop, according to 
last reports, had been down in the south of Mexico 
on an archeological expedition. But before I could 
frame, even in my mind, the natural question in a 
form that would not alarm his wife further, Ken- 
nedy had it on his lips. 

a No bad news from Mitla, I hope?” he asked 
gently, recalling one of the main working stations 
chosen by the expedition and the reported unsettled 
condition of the country about it. She looked up 
quickly. 

“Didn’t you know — he — came back from Vera 
Cruz yesterday?” she asked slowly, then added, 
speaking in a broken tone, “and — he seems — sud- 
denly — to have disappeared. Oh, such a terrible 
night of worry! No word — and I called up the 
museum, but Doctor Bernardo, the curator, had 
gone, and no one answered. And this morning — I 
couldn’t stand it any longer — so I came to you.” 

“You have no idea, I suppose, of anything that 
was weighing on his mind?” suggested Kennedy. 

“No,” she answered promptly. 

In default of any further information, Kennedy 
did not pursue this line of questioning. I could not 
determine from his face or manner whether he 
thought the matter might involve another than Mrs. 
Northrop, or, perhaps, something connected with 
the unsettled condition of the country from which 
her husband had just arrived. 

“Have you any of the letters that Archer wrote 
home?” asked Craig, at length. 

“Yes,” she replied eagerly, taking a little packet 


THE WAR TERROR 


98 

from her handbag. “I thought you might ask that. 
I brought them.” 

“You are an ideal client,” commented Craig 
encouragingly, taking the letters. “Now, Mrs. 
Northrop, be brave. Trust me to run this thing 
down, and if you hear anything let me know imme- 
diately.” 

She left us a moment later, visibly relieved. 

Scarcely had she gone when Craig, stuffing the 
letters into his pocket unread, seized his hat, and a 
moment later was striding along toward the museum 
with his habitual rapid, abstracted step which told 
me that he sensed a mystery. 

In the museum we met Doctor Bernardo, a man 
slightly older than Northrop, with whom he had 
been very intimate. He had just arrived and was 
already deeply immersed in the study of some new 
and beautiful colored plates from the National 
Museum of Mexico City. 

“Do you remember seeing Northrop here yes- 
terday afternoon?” greeted Craig, without explain- 
ing what had happened. 

“Yes,” he answered promptly. “I was here with 
him until very late. At least, he was in his own 
room, working hard, when I left.” 

“Did you see him go?” 

“Why — er — no,” replied Bernardo, as if that 
were a new idea. “I left him here — at least, I 
didn’t see him go out.” 

Kennedy tried the door of Northrop’s room, 
which was at the far end, in a corner, and com- 
municated with the hall only through the main floor 
of the museum. It was locked. A pass-key from 
the janitor quickly opened it. 

Such a sight as greeted us, I shall never forget. 


THE CURIO SHOP 99 

There, in his big desk-chair, sat Northrop, abso- 
lutely rigid, the most horribly contorted look on his 
features that I have ever seen — half of pain, half 
of fear, as if of something nameless. 

Kennedy bent over. His hands were cold. 
Northrop had been dead at least twelve hours, per- 
haps longer. All night the deserted museum had 
guarded its terrible secret. 

As Craig peered into his face, he saw, in the 
fleshy part of the neck, just below the left ear, a 
round red mark, with just a drop or two of now 
black coagulated blood in the center. All around 
we could see a vast amount of miscellaneous stuff, 
partly unpacked, partly just opened, and waiting to 
be taken out of the wrappings by the now motion- 
less hands. 

“I suppose you are more or less familiar with 
what Northrop brought back?” asked Kennedy of 
Bernardo, running his eye over the material in the 
room. 

“Yes, reasonably,” answered Bernardo. “Before 
the cases arrived from the wharf, he told me in de- 
tail what he had managed to bring up with him.” 

“I wish, then, that you would look it over and 
see if there is anything missing,” requested Craig, 
already himself busy in going over the room for 
other evidence. 

Doctor Bernardo hastily began taking a mental 
inventory of the stuff. While they worked, I tried 
vainly to frame some theory which would explain 
the startling facts we had so suddenly discovered. 

Mitla, I knew, was south of the city of Oaxaca, 
and there, in its ruined palaces, was the crowning 
achievement of the old Zapotec kings. No ruins in 


100 


THE WAR TERROR 

America were more elaborately ornamented or 
richer in lore for the archeologist. 

Northrop had brought up porphyry blocks with 
quaint grecques and much hieroglyphic painting. 
Already unpacked were half a dozen copper axes, 
some of the first of that particular style that had 
ever been brought to the United States. Besides the 
sculptured stones and the mosaics were jugs, cups, 
vases, little gods, sacrificial stones — enough, almost, 
to equip a new alcove in the museum. 

Before Northrop was an idol, a hideous thing on 
which frogs and snakes squatted and coiled. It was 
a fitting piece to accompany the gruesome occupant 
of the little room in his long, last vigil. In fact, it 
almost sent a shudder over me, and if I had been 
inclined to the superstitious, I should certainly have 
concluded that this was retribution for having dis- 
turbed the lares and penates of a dead race. 

Doctor Bernardo was going over the material a 
second time. By the look on his face, even I could 
guess that something was missing. 

“What is it?” asked Craig, following the curator 
closely. 

“Why,” he answered slowly, “there was an in- 
scription — we were looking at it earlier in the day 
— on a small block of porphyry. I don’t see it.” 

He paused and went back to his search before we 
could ask him further what he thought the inscrip- 
tion was about. 

I thought nothing myself at the time of his reti- 
cence, for Kennedy had gone over to a window back 
of Northrop and to the left. It was fully twenty 
feet from the downward slope of the campus there, 
and, as he craned his neck out, he noted that the 


THE CURIO SHOP iox 

copper leader of the rain pipe ran past it a few feet 
away. 

I, too, looked out. A thick group of trees hid the 
window from the avenue beyond the campus wall, 
and below us, at a corner of the building, was a 
clump of rhododendrons. As Craig bent over the 
sill, he whipped out a pocket lens. 

A moment later he silently handed the glass to 
me. As nearly as I could make out, there were 
five marks on the dust of the sill. 

“Finger-prints!” I exclaimed. “Some one has 
been clinging to the edge of the ledge.” 

“In that case,” Craig observed quietly, “there 
would have been only four prints.” 

I looked again, puzzled. The prints were flat and 
well separated. 

“No,” he added, “not finger-prints — toe-prints.” 

“Toe-prints?” I echoed. 

Before he could reply, Craig had dashed out of 
the room, around, and under the window. There, 
he was carefully going over the soft earth around 
the bushes below. 

“What are you looking for?” I asked, joining 
him. 

“Some one — perhaps two — has been here,” he 
remarked, almost under his breath. “One, at least, 
has removed his shoes. See those shoe-prints up 
to this point? The print of a boot-heel in soft earth 
shows the position and contour of every nail head. 
Bertillon has made a collection of such nails, certain 
types, sizes, and shapes used in certain boots, show- 
ing often what country the shoes came from. Even 
the number and pattern are significant. Some fac- 
tories use a fixed number of nails and arrange them 
in a particular manner. I have made my own col- 


102 


THE WAR TERROR 


lection of such prints in this country. These were 
American shoes. Perhaps the clue will not lead us 
anywhere, though, for I doubt whether it was an 
American foot.” 

Kennedy continued to study the marks. 

“He removed his shoes — either to help in climb- 
ing or to prevent noise — ah — here’s the foot! 
Strange — see how small it is — and broad, how pre- 
hensile the toes — almost like fingers. Surely that 
foot could never have been encased in American 
shoes all its life. I shall make plaster casts of these, 
to preserve later.” 

He was still scouting about on hands and knees 
in the dampness of the rhododendrons. Suddenly 
he reached his long arm in among the shrubs and 
picked up a little reed stick. On the end of it was 
a small cylinder of buff brown. 

He looked at it curiously, dug his nail into the soft 
mass, then rubbed his nail over the tip of his tongue 
gingerly. 

With a wry face, as if the taste were extremely 
acrid, he moistened his handkerchief and wiped off 
his tongue vigorously. 

“Even that minute particle that was on my nail 
makes my tongue tingle and feel numb,” he re- 
marked, still rubbing. “Let us go back again. I 
want to see Bernardo.” 

“Had he any visitors during the day?” queried 
Kennedy, as he reentered the ghastly little room, 
while the curator stood outside, completely unnerved 
by the tragedy which had been so close to him with- 
out his apparently knowing it. Kennedy was squeez- 
ing out from the little wound on Northrop’s neck 
a few drops of liquid on a sterilized piece of glass. 


THE CURIO SHOP 103 

“No; no one,” Bernardo answered, after a mo- 
ment. 

“Did you see anyone in the museum who looked 
suspicious?” asked Kennedy, watching Bernardo’s 
face keenly. 

“No,” he hesitated. “There were several peo- 
ple wandering about among the exhibits, of course. 
One, I recall, late in the afternoon, was a little 
dark-skinned woman, rather good-looking.” 

“A Mexican?” 

“Yes, I should say so. Not of Spanish descent, 
though. She was rather of the Indian type. She 
seemed to be much interested in the various ex- 
hibits, asked me several questions, very intelligently, 
too. Really, I thought she was trying to — er — flirt 
with me.” 

He shot a glance at Craig, half of confession, half 
of embarrassment. 

“And — oh, yes — there was another — a man, a 
little man, as I recall, with shaggy hair. He looked 
like a Russian to me. I remember, because he came 
to the door, peered around hastily, and went away. 
I thought he might have got into the wrong part of 
the building and went to direct him right — but be- 
fore I could get out into the hall, he was gone. I 
remember, too, that, as I turned, the woman had 
followed me and soon was asking other questions — 
which, I will admit — I was glad to answer.” 

“Was Northrop in his room while these people 
were here?” 

“Yes; he had locked the door so that none of the 
students or visitors could disturb him.” 

“Evidently the woman was diverting your atten- 
tion while the man entered Northrop’s room by the 


io 4 THE WAR TERROR 

window,” ruminated Craig, as we stood for a mo- 
ment in the outside doorway. 

He had already telephoned to our old friend 
Doctor Leslie, the coroner, to take charge of the 
case, and now was ready to leave. The news had 
spread, and the janitor of the building was waiting 
to lock the campus door to keep back the crowd of 
students and others. 

Our next duty was the painful one of breaking 
the news to Mrs. Northrop. I shall pass it over. 
Perhaps no one could have done it more gently than 
Kennedy. She did not cry. She was simply dazed. 
Fortunately her mother was with her, had been, in 
fact, ever since Northrop had gone on the expedi- 
tion. 

“Why should anyone want to steal tablets of old 
Mixtec inscriptions?” I asked thoughtfully, as we 
walked sadly over the campus in the direction of 
the chemistry building. “Have they a sufficient 
value, even on appreciative Fifth Avenue, to war- 
rant murder?” 

“Well,” he remarked, “it does seem incompre- 
hensible. Yet people do just such things. The 
psychologists tell us that there is a veritable mania 
for possessing such curios. However, it is possible 
that there may be some deeper significance in this 
case,” he added, his face puckered in thought. 

Who was the mysterious Mexican woman, who 
the shaggy Russian? I asked myself. Clearly, at 
least, if she existed at all, she was one of the mil- 
lions not of Spanish but of Indian descent in the 
country south of us. As I reasoned it out, it seemed 
to me as if she must have been an accomplice. She 
could not have got into Northrop’s room either be- 
fore or after Doctor Bernardo left. Then, too, the 


THE CURIO SHOP 


105 

toe- and shoe-prints were not hers. But, I figured, 
she certainly had a part in the plot. 

While I was engaged in the vain effort to un- 
ravel the tragic affair by pure reason, Kennedy was 
at work with practical science. 

He began by examining the little dark cylinder on 
the end of the reed. On a piece of the stuff, broken 
off, he poured a dark liquid from a brown-glass 
bottle. Then he placed it under a microscope. 

“Microscopically,” he said slowly, “it consists al- 
most wholly of minute, clear granules which give a 
blue reaction with iodine. They are starch. Mixed 
with them are some larger starch granules, a few 
plant cells, fibrous matter, and other foreign par- 
ticles. And then, there is the substance that gives 
that acrid, numbing taste.” He appeared to be 
vacantly studying the floor. 

“What do you think it is?” I asked, unable to 
restrain myself. 

“Aconite,” he answered slowly, “of which the ac- 
tive principle is the deadly poisonous alkaloid, 
aconitin.” 

He walked over and pulled down a well-thumbed 
standard work on toxicology, turned the pages, then 
began to read aloud: 

Pure aconitin is probably the most actively poison- 
ous substance with which we are acquainted and, if 
administered hypodermically, the alkaloid is even 
more powerfully poisonous than when taken by the 
mouth. 

As in the case of most of the poisonous alkaloids, 
aconitin does not produce any decidedly characteris- 
tic post-mortem appearances. There is no way to 
distinguish it from other alkaloids, in fact, no re-» 
s 


10 6 THE WAR TERROR 

liable chemical test. The physiological effects before 
death are all that can be relied on. 

Owing to its exceeding toxic nature, the smallness 
of the dose required to produce death, and the lack 
of tests for recognition, aconitin possesses rather 
more interest in legal medicine than most other 
poisons. 

It is one of the few substances which, in the pres- 
ent state of toxicology, might be criminally adminis- 
tered and leave no positive evidence of the crime. If 
a small but fatal dose of the poison were to be given, 
especially if it were administered hypodermically, the 
chances of its detection in the body after death would 
be practically none. 


f 


CHAPTER XI 


THE “PILLAR OF DEATH” 

I WAS looking at him fixedly as the diabolical na- 
ture of what must have happened sank into my mind. 
Here was a poison that defied detection. I could 
see by the look on Craig’s face that that problem, 
alone, was enough to absorb his attention. He 
seemed fully to realize that we had to deal with a 
criminal so clever that he might never be brought 
to justice. 

An idea flashed over me. 

“How about the letters?” I suggested. 

“Good, Walter!” he exclaimed. 

He untied the package which Mrs. Northrop had 
given him and glanced quickly over one after an- 
other of the letters. 

“Ah!” he exclaimed, fairly devouring one dated 
at Mitla. “Listen — it tells about Northrop’s work 
and goes on: 

“ ‘I have been much interested in a cavern, or sub - ‘ 
terraneo , here, in the shape of a cross, each arm of 
which extends for some twelve feet underground. 
In the center it is guarded by a block of stone popu- 
larly called “the Pillar of Death.” There is a su- 
perstition that whoever embraces it will die before 
the sun goes down. 

“ ‘From the subterraneo is said to lead a long, un- 
derground passage across the court to another sub- 
107 


io8 THE WAR TERROR 

terranean chamber which is full of Mixtec treasure. 
Treasure hunters have dug all around it, and it is 
said that two old Indians, only, know of the im- 
mense amount of buried gold and silver, but that 
they will not reveal it.’ ” 

I started up. Here was the missing link which 
I had been waiting for. 

“There, at least, is the motive,” I blurted out. 
“That is why Bernardo was so reticent. Northrop, 
in his innocence of heart, had showed him that in- 
scription.” 

Kennedy said nothing as he finally tied up the 
little packet of letters and locked it in his safe. He 
was not given to hasty generalizations; neither was 
he one who clung doggedly to a preconceived theory. 

It was still early in the afternoon. Craig and I 
decided to drop into the museum again in order to 
see Doctor Bernardo. He was not there* and we 
sat down to wait. 

Just then the letter box in the door clicked. It 
was the postman on his rounds. Kennedy walked 
over and picked up the letter. 

The postmark bore the words, “Mexico City,” 
and a date somewhat later than that on which Nor^ 
throp had left Vera Cruz. In the lower corner, un- 
derscored, were the words, “Personal — Urgent.” 

“I’d like to know what is in that,” remarked 
Craig, turning it over and over. 

He appeared to be considering something, for 
he rose suddenly and shoved the letter into his 
pocket. 

I followed, and a few moments later, across the 
campus in his laboratory, he was working quickly 
over an X-ray apparatus. He had placed the let- 
ter in iu. 


THE “PILLAR OF DEATH” 109 

“These are what are known as ‘low’ tubes,’’ he ex- 
plained. “They give out ‘soft rays.’ ” He con- 
tinued to work for a few moments, then handed me 
the letter. 

“Now, Walter,” he said, “if you will just hurry 
back to the museum and replace that letter, I think 
I will have something that will astonish you — though 
whether it will have any bearing on the case, re- 
mains to be seen.” 

“What is it?” I asked, a few minutes later, when 
I had rejoined him, after returning the letter. He 
was poring intently over what looked like a nega- 
tive. 

“The possibility of reading the contents of docu- 
ments inclosed in a sealed envelope,” he replied, 
still studying the shadowgraph closely, “has already 
been established by the well-known English scientist, 
Doctor Hall Edwards. He has been experimenting 
with the method of using X-rays recently discovered 
by a German scientist, by which radiographs of very 
thin substances, such as a sheet of paper, a leaf, an 
insect’s body, may be obtained. These thin sub- 
stances through which the rays used formerly to 
pass without leaving an impression, can now be 
radiographed.” 

I looked carefully as he traced out something on 
the negative. On it was easily possible, following 
his guidance, to read the words inscribed on the 
sheet of paper inside. So admirably defined were 
all the details that even the gum on the envelope and 
the edges of the sheet of paper inside the envelope 
could be distinguished. 

“Any letter written with ink having a mineral 
basis can be radiographed,” added Craig. “Even 
when the sheet is folded in the usual way, it is pos- 


no 


THE WAR TERROR 

sible by taking a radiograph stereoscopically, to dis- 
tinguish the writing, every detail standing out in 
relief. Besides, it can be greatly magnified, which 
aids in deciphering it if it is indistinct or jumbled up. 
Some of it looks like mirror writing. Ah,” he added, 
“here’s something interesting!” 

Together we managed to trace out the contents 
of several paragraphs, of which the significant parts 
were as follows : 

I am expecting that my friend Sehora Herreria 
will be in New York by the time you receive this, 
and should she call on you, I know you will accord 
her every courtesy. She has been in Mexico City 
for a few days, having just returned from Mitla, 
where she met Professor Northrop. It is rumored 
that Professor Northrop has succeeded in smuggling 
out of the country a very important stone bearing 
an inscription which, I understand, is of more than 
ordinary interest. I do not know anything definite 
about it, as Sehora Herreria is very reticent on the 
matter, but depend on you to find out if possible and 
let me know of it. 

According to the rumors and the statements of 
the sehora, it seems that Northrop has taken an un- 
fair advantage of the situation down in Oaxaca, and 
I suppose she and others who know about the in- 
scription feel that it is really the possession of the 
government. 

You will find that the sehora is an accomplished 
antiquarian and scholar. Like many others down 
here just now, she has a high regard for the Japan- 
ese. As you know, there exists a natural sympathy 
between some Mexicans and Japanese, owing to 
what is believed to be a common origin of the two 
races. 

In spite of the assertions of many to the contrary, 


THE “PILLAR OF DEATH” 


hi 


there is little doubt left in the minds of students that 
the Indian races which have peopled Mexico were of 
Mongolian stock. Many words in some dialects are 
easily understood by Chinese immigrants. A secre- 
tary of the Japanese legation here was able recently 
to decipher old Mixtec inscriptions found in the 
ruins of Mitla. 

Senora Herreria has been much interested in es- 
tablishing the relationship and, I understand, is ac- 
quainted with a Japanese curio dealer in New York 
who recently visited Mexico for the same purpose. 
I believe that she wishes to collaborate with him on 
a monograph on the subject, which is expected to 
have a powerful effect on the public opinion both 
here and at Tokyo. 

In regard to the inscription which Northrop has 
taken with him, I rely on you to keep me informed. 
There seems to be a great deal of mystery connected 
with it, and I am simply hazarding a guess as to its 
nature. If it should prove to be something which 
might interest either the Japanese or ourselves, you 
can see how important it may be, especially in view 
of the forthcoming mission of General Francisco to 
Tokyo. 

Very sincerely yours, 

Dr. Emilio Sanchez, Director. 

“Bernardo is a Mexican,” I exclaimed, as Ken- 
nedy finished reading, “and there can be no doubt 
that the woman he mentioned was this Senora Her- 
reria.” 

Kennedy said nothing, but seemed to be weigh- 
ing the various paragraphs in the letter. 

“Still,” I observed, “so far, the only one against 
whom we have any direct suspicion in the case is 
the shaggy Russian, whoever he is.” 


1 1 2 


THE WAR TERROR 

“A man whom Bernardo says looked like a Rus- 
sian/’ corrected Craig. 

He was pacing the laboratory restlessly. 

“This is becoming quite an international affair/’ 
he remarked finally, pausing before me, his hat on. 
“Would you like to relax your mind by a little ex- 
cursion among the curio shops of the city? I know 
something about Japanese curios — more, perhaps, 
than I do of Mexican. It may amuse us, even if it 
doesn’t help in solving the mystery. Meanwhile, I 
shall make arrangements for shadowing Bernardo. 
I want to know just how he acts after he reads that 
letter.” 

He paused long enough to telephone his instruc- 
tions to an uptown detective agency which could be 
depended on for such mere routine work, then 
joined me with the significant remark: “Blood is 
thicker than water, anyhow, Walter.- Still, even if 
the Mexicans are influenced by sentiment, I hardly 
think that would account for the interest of our 
friends from across the water in the matter.” 

I do not know how many of the large and small 
curio shops of the city we visited that afternoon. At 
another time, I should have enjoyed the visits im- 
mensely, for anyone seeking articles of beauty will 
find the antique shops of Fifth and Fourth Avenues 
and the side streets well worth visiting. 

We came, at length, to one, a small, quaint, dusty 
rookery, down in a basement, entered almost directly 
from the street. It bore over the door a little gilt 
sign which read simply, “Sato’s.” 

As we entered, I could not help being impressed 
by the wealth of articles in beautiful cloisonne 
enamel, in mother-of-pearl, lacquer, and champleve. 
There were beautiful little koros, or incense burners, 


THE “PILLAR OF DEATH 1 


vases, and teapots. There were enamels incrusted, 
translucent, and painted, works of the famous Nami- 
kawa, of Kyoto, and Namikawa, of Tokyo. Sat- 
suma vases, splendid and rare examples of the pot- 
ter’s art, crowded gorgeously embroidered screens 
depicting all sorts of brilliant scenes, among others 
the sacred Fujiyama rising in the stately distance. 
Sato himself greeted us with a ready smile and bow. 

“I am just looking for a few things to add to my 
den,” explained Kennedy, adding, “nothing in par- 
ticular, but merely whatever happens to strike my 
fancy.” 

“Surely, then, you have come to the right shop,” 
greeted Sato. “If there is anything that interests 
you, I shall be glad to show it.” 

“Thank you,” replied Craig. “Don’t let me 
trouble you with your other customers. I will call 
on you if I see anything.” 

For several minutes, Craig and I busied ourselves 
looking about, and we did not have to feign interest, 
either. 

“Often things are not as represented,” he whis- 
pered to me, after a while, “but a connoiseur can 
tell spurious goods. These are the real thing, 
mostly.” 

“Not one in fifty can tell the difference,” put in 
the voice of Sato, at his elbow. 

“Well, you see I happen to know,” Craig replied, 
not the least disconcerted. “You can’t always be too 
sure.” 

A laugh and a shrug was Sato’s answer. “It’s 
well all are not so keen,” he said, with a frank ac- 
knowledgment that he was not above sharp prac- 
tices. 

I glanced now and then at the expressionless face 


1 1 4 THE WAR TERROR 

of the curio dealer. Was it merely the natural 
blankness of his countenance that impressed me, or 
was there, in fact, something deep and dark hidden 
in it, something of “East is East and West is West” 
which I did not and could not understand? Craig 
was admiring the bronzes. He had paused before 
one, a square metal fire-screen of odd design, with 
the title on a card, “Japan Gazing at the World.” 

It represented Japan as an eagle, with beak and 
talons of burnished gold, resting on a rocky island 
about which great waves dashed. The bird had an 
air of dignity and conscious pride in its strength, as 
it looked out at the world, a globe revolving in 
space. 

“Do you suppose there is anything significant in 
that?” I asked, pointing to the continent of North 
America, also in gold and prominently in view. 

“Ah, honorable sir,” answered Sato, before Ken- 
nedy could reply, “the artist intended by that to in- 
dicate Japan’s friendliness for America and Amer- 
ica’s greatness.” 

He was inscrutable. It seemed as if he were 
watching our every move, and yet it was done with 
a polite cordiality that could not give offense. 

Behind some bronzes of the Japanese Hercules 
destroying the demons and other mythical heroes 
was a large alcove, or tokonoma, decorated with 
peacock, stork, and crane panels. Carvings and lac- 
quer added to the beauty of it. A miniature chrys- 
anthemum garden heightened the illusion. Carved 
hinoki w T ood framed the panels, and the roof was 
supported by columns irl the old Japanese style, the 
whole being a compromise between the very simple 
and quiet and the polychromatic. The dark woods, 
the lanterns, the floor tiles of dark red, and the 


THE “PILLAR OF DEATH” 115, 

cushions of rich gold and yellow were most allur- 
ing. It had the genuine fascination of the Orient. 

“Will the gentlemen drink a little sake?” Sato 
asked politely. 

Craig thanked him and said that we would. 

“Otaka!” Sato called. 

A peculiar, almost white-skinned attendant an- 
swered, and a moment later produced four cups and 
poured out the rice brandy, taking his own quietly, 
apart from us. I watched him drink, curiously. He 
took the cup ; then, with a long piece of carved wood, 
he dipped into the sake , shaking a few drops on the 
floor to the four quarters. Finally, with a deft 
sweep, he lifted his heavy mustache with the piece 
of wood and drank off the draft almost without tak- 
ing breath. 

He was a peculiar man of middle height, with a 
shock of dark, tough, woolly hair, well formed and 
not bad-looking, with a robust general physique, as 
if his ancestors had been meat eaters. His fore- 
head was narrow and sloped backward; the cheek- 
bones were prominent; nose hooked, broad and wide, 
with strong nostrils; mouth large, with thick lips, 
and not very prominent chin. His eyes were per- 
haps the most noticeable feature. They were dark 
gray, almost like those of a European. 

As Otaka withdrew with the empty cups, we rose 
to continue our inspection of the wonders of the 
shop. There were ivories of all descriptions. Here 
was a two-handled sword, with a very large ivory 
handle, a weirdly carved scabbard, and wonderful 
steel blade. By the expression of Craig’s face, Sato 
knew that he had made a sale. 

Craig had been rummaging among some warlike 
instruments which Sato, with the instincts of a true 


ii 6 THE WAR TERROR 

salesman, was now displaying, and had picked up 
a bow. It was short, very strong, and made of pine 
wood. He held it horizontally and twanged the 
string. I looked up in time to catch a pleased ex- 
pression on the face of Otaka. 

“Most people would have helddt the other way,” 
commented Sato. 

Craig said nothing, but was examining an arrow, 
almost twenty inches long and thick, made of cane, 
with a point of metal very sharp but badly fastened. 
He fingered the deep blood groove in the scooplike 
head of the arrow and looked at it carefully. 

“I’ll take that,” he said, “only I wish it were one 
with the regular reddish-brown lump in it.” 

“Oh, but, honorable sir,” apologized Sato, “the 
Japanese law prohibits that, now. There are few 
of those, and they are very valuable.” 

“I suppose so,” agreed Craig. “This will do, 
though. You have a wonderful shop here, Sato. 
Some time, when I feel richer, I mean to come in 
again. No, thank you, you need not send them; I’ll 
carry them.” 

We bowed ourselves out, promising to come again 
when Sato received a new consignment from the 
Orient which he was expecting. 

“That other Jap is a peculiar fellow,” I observed, 
as we walked along uptown again. 

“He isn’t a Jap,” remarked Craig. “He is an 
Ainu, one of the aborigines who have been driven 
northward into the island of Yezo.” 

“An Ainu?” I repeated. 

“Yes. Generally thought, now, to be a white 
race and nearer of kin to Europeans than Asiatics. 
The Japanese have pushed them northward and are 
now trying to civilize them. They are a dirty, hairy 


THE “PILLAR OF DEATH 1 


race, but when they are brought under civilizing in- 
fluences they adapt themselves to their environment 
and make very good servants. Still, they are on 
about the lowest scale of humanity.” 

“I thought Otaka was very mild,” I commented. 

“They are a most inoffensive and peaceable peo- 
ple usually,” he answered, “good-natured and amen- 
able to authority. But they become dangerous when 
driven to despair by cruel treatment. The Japanese 
government is very considerate of them — but not all 
Japanese are.” 


CHAPTER XII 


THE ARROW POISON 

Far into the night Craig was engaged in some 
very delicate and minute microscopic work in the 
laboratory. 

We were about to leave when there was a gentle 
tap on the door. Kennedy opened it and admitted 
a young man, the operative of the detective agency 
who had been shadowing Bernardo. His report was 
very brief, but, to me at least, significant. Ber- 
nardo, on his return to the museum, had evidently 
read the letter, which had agitated him very much, 
for a few moments later he hurriedly left and went 
downtown to the Prince Henry Hotel. The opera- 
tive had casually edged up to the desk and over- 
heard whom he asked for. It was Senora Her- 
reria. Once again, later in the evening, he had 
asked for her, but she was still out. 

It was quite early the next morning, when Ken- 
nedy had resumed his careful microscopic work, that 
the telephone bell rang, and he answered it mechani- 
cally. But a moment later a look of intense surprise 
crossed his face. 

“It was from Doctor Leslie,” he announced, 
hanging up the receiver quickly. “He has a most 
peculiar case which he wants me to see — a woman.” 

Kennedy called a cab, and, at a furious pace, we 
dashed across the city and down to the Metropolitan 
118 


THE ARROW POISON 119 

Hospital, where Doctor Leslie was waiting. He 
met us eagerly and conducted us to a little room 
where, lying motionless on a bed, was a woman. 

She was a striking-looking woman, dark of hair 
and skin, and in life she must have been sensuously 
attractive. But now her face was drawn and con- 
torted — with the same ghastly look that had been on 
the face of Northrop. 

“She died in a cab,” explained Doctor Leslie, “be- 
fore they could get her to the hospital. At first they 
suspected the cab driver. But he seems to have 
proved his innocence. He picked her up last night 
on Fifth Avenue, reeling — thought she was intoxi- 
cated. And, in fact, he seems to have been right. 
Our tests have shown a great deal of alcohol pres- 
ent, but nothing like enough to have had such a seri- 
ous effect.” 

“She told nothing of herself?” asked Kennedy. 

“No; she was pretty far gone when the cabby 
answered her signal. All he could get out of her 
was a word that sounded like ‘Curio-curio.’ He 
says she seemed to complain of something about her 
mouth and head. Her face was drawn and 
shrunken; her hands were cold and clammy, and 
then convulsions came on. He called an ambulance, 
but she was past saving when it arrived. The numb- 
ness seemed to have extended over all her body; 
swallowing was impossible; there was entire loss of 
her voice as well as sight, and death took place by 
syncope.” 

“Have you any clue to the cause of her death?” 
asked Craig. 

“Well, it might have been some trouble with her 
heart, I suppose,” remarked Doctor Leslie tenta- 
tively. 


120 THE WAR TERROR 

“Oh, she looks strong that way. No, hardly any- 
thing organic.” 

“Well, then I thought she looked like a Mexi- 
can,” went on Doctor Leslie. “It might be some 
new tropical disease. I confess I don’t know. The 
fact is,” he added, lowering his voice, “I had my 
own theory about it until a few moments ago. That 
was why I called you.” 

“What do you mean?” asked Craig, evidently 
bent on testing his own theory by the other’s igno- 
rance. 

Doctor Leslie made no answer immediately, but 
raised the sheet which covered her body and dis- 
closed, in the fleshy part of the upper arm, a curi- 
ous little red swollen mark with a couple of drops 
of darkened blood. 

“I thought at first,” he added, “that we had at 
last a genuine ‘poisoned needle’ case. You see, that 
looked like it. But I have made all the tests for 
curare and strychnin without results.” 

At the mere suggestion, a procession of hypo- 
dermic-needle and white-slavery stories flashed be- 
fore me. 

“But,” objected Kennedy, “clearly this was not 
a case of kidnaping. It is a case of murder. Have 
you tested for the ordinary poisons?” 

Doctor Leslie shook his head. “There was no 
poison,” he said, “absolutely none that any of our 
tests could discover.” 

Kennedy bent over and squeezed out a few drops 
of liquid from the wound on a microscope slide, and 
covered them. 

“You have not identified her yet,” he add id, look- 
ing up. “I think you will find, Leslie, that there is 
a Senora Herreria registered at the Prince Henry 


THE ARROW POKON 121 

who is missing, and that this woman will agree with 
the description of her. Anyhow, I wish you would 
look it up and let me know.” 

Half an hour later, Kennedy was preparing to 
continue his studies with the microscope when Doc- 
tor Bernardo entered. He seemed most solicitous to 
know what progress was being made on the case, 
and, although Kennedy did not tell much, still he 
did not discourage conversation on the subject. 

When we came in the night before, Craig had 
unwrapped and tossed down the Japanese sword 
and the Ainu bow and arrow on a table, and it was 
not long before they attracted Bernardo’s attention. 

“I see you are a collector yourself,” he ventured, 
picking them up. 

“Yes,” answered Craig, offhand; “I picked them 
up yesterday at Sato’s. You know the place?” 

“Oh, yes, I know Sato,” answered the curator, 
seemingly without the slightest hesitation. “He has 
been in Mexico — is quite a student.” 

“And the other man, Otaka?” 

“Other man — Otaka? You mean his wife?” 

T saw Kennedy check a motion of surprise and 
came to the rescue with the natural question: “His 
wife — with a beard and mustache?” 

It was Bernardo’s turn to be surprised. He 
looked at me a moment, then saw that I meant it, 
and suddenly his face lighted up. 

“Oh,” he exclaimed, “that must have been on 
account of the immigration laws or something of 
the sort. Otaka is his wife. The Ainus are much 
sought after by the Japanese as wives. The women, 
you know, have a custom of tattooing mustaches on 
themselves. It is hideous, but they think it is beau- 
tiful.” 


9 


122 


THE WAR TERROR 

“I know,” I pursued, watching Kennedy’s interest 
in our conversation, “but this was not tattooed.” 

“Well, then, it must have been false,” insisted 
Bernardo. 

The curator chatted a few moments, during which 
I expected Kennedy to lead the conversation around 
to Senora Herreria. But he did not, evidently fear- 
ing to show his hand. 

“What did you make of it?” I asked, when he 
had gone. “Is he trying to hide something?” 

“I think he has simplified the case,” remarked 
Craig, leaning back, his hands behind his head, 
gazing up at the ceiling. “Hello, here’s Leslie! 
What did you find, Doctor?” The coroner had en- 
tered with a look of awe on his face, as if Kennedy 
had directed him by some sort of necromancy. 

“It was Senora Herreria!” he exclaimed. “She 
has been missing from the hotel ever since late yes- 
terday afternoon. What do you think of it?” 

“I think,” replied Kennedy, speaking slowly and 
deliberately, “that it is very much like the Northrop 
case. You haven’t taken that up yet?” 

“Only superficially. What do you make of it?” 
asked the coroner. 

“I had an idea that it might be aconitin poison- 
ing,” he said. 

Leslie glanced at him keenly for a moment. 
“Then you’ll never prove anything in the labora- 
tory,” he said. 

“There are more ways of catching a criminal, 
Leslie,” put in Craig, “than are set down in the 
medico-legal text-books. I shall depend on you and 
Jameson to gather together a rather cosmopolitan 
crowd here to-night.” 

He said it with a quiet confidence which I could 


THE ARROW PO T SON 123 

not gainsay, although I did not understand. How- 
ever, mostly with the official aid of Doctor Leslie, I 
followed out his instructions, and it was indeed a 
strange party that assembled that night. There 
were Doctor Bernardo; Sato, the curio dealer; 
Otaka, the Ainu, and ourselves. Mrs. Northrop, 
of course, could not come. 

“Mexico,” began Craig, after he had said a few 
words explaining why he had brought us together, 
“is full of historical treasure. To all intents and 
purposes, the government says, ‘Come and dig.’ But 
when there are finds, then the government swoops 
down on them for its own national museum. The 
finder scarcely gets a chance to export them. How- 
ever, now seemed to be the time to Professor Nor- 
throp to smuggle his finds out of the country. 

“But evidently it could not be done without excit- 
ing all kinds of rumors and suspicions. Stories seem 
to have spread far and fast about what he had dis- 
covered. He realized the unsettled condition of the 
country — perhaps wanted to confirm his reading of 
a certain inscription by consultation with one scholar 
whom he thought he could trust. At any rate, he 
came home.” 

Kennedy paused, making use of the silence for 
emphasis. “You have all read of the wealth that 
Cortez found in Mexico. Where are the gold and 
silver of the conquistadores f Gone to the melting 
pot, centuries ago. But is there none left? The 
Indians believe so. There are persons who would 
stop at nothing — even at murder of American pro- 
fessors, murder of their own comrades, to get at 
the secret.” 

He laid his hand almost lovingly on his power- 


124 THE WAR TERROR 

ful little microscope as he resumed on another line 
of evidence. 

“And while we are on the subject of murders, 
two very similar deaths have occurred,” he went on. 
“It is of no use to try to gloss them over. Frankly, 
I suspected that they might have been caused by 
aconite poisoning. But, in the case of such poison- 
ing, not only is the lethal dose very small but our 
chemical methods of detection are nil. The dose of 
the active principle, aconitin nitrate, is about one 
six-hundredth of a grain. There are no color tests, 
no reactions, as in the case of the other organic 
poisons.” 

I wondered what he was driving at. Was there, 
indeed, no test? Had the murderer used the safest 
of poisons — one that left no clue ? I looked covertly 
at Sato’s face. It was impassive. Doctor Ber- 
nardo was visibly uneasy as Kennedy proceeded. 
Cool enough up to the time of the mention of the 
treasure, I fancied, now, that he was growing more 
and more nervous. 

Craig laid down on the table the reed stick with 
the little darkened cylinder on the end. 

“That,” he said, “is a little article which I picked 
up beneath Northrop’s window yesterday. It is a 
piece of anno-noki, or bushi ” I fancied I saw just 
a glint of satisfaction in Otaka’s eyes. 

“Like many barbarians,” continued Craig, “the 
Ainus from time immemorial have prepared virulent 
poisons with which they charged their weapons of 
the chase and warfare. The formulas for the 
preparations, as in the case of other arrow poisons 
of other tribes, are known only to certain members, 
and the secret is passed down from generation to 
generation as an heirloom, as it were. But in this 


THE ARROW POISON 125 

case it is no longer a secret. It has now been proved 
that the active principle of this poison is aconite.” 

“If that is the case,” broke in Doctor Leslie, “it 
is hopeless to connect anyone directly in that way 
with these murders. There is no test for aconitin.” 

I thought Sato’s face was more composed and 
impassive than ever. Doctor Bernardo, however, 
was plainly excited. 

“What — no test — none?” asked Kennedy, lean- 
ing forward eagerly. Then, as if he could restrain 
the answer to his own question no longer, he shot 
out: “How about the new starch test just discov- 
ered by Professor Reichert, of the University of 
Pennsylvania? Doubtless you never dreamed that 
starch may be a means of detecting the nature of a 
poison in obscure cases in criminology, especially in 
cases where the quantity of poison necessary to cause 
death is so minute that no trace of it can be found 
in the blood. 

“The starch method is a new and extremely in- 
viting subject to me. The peculiarities of the starch 
of any plant are quite as distinctive of the plant as 
are those of the hemoglobin crystals in the blood of 
an animal. I have analyzed the evidence of my 
microscope in this case thoroughly. When the ar- 
row poison is introduced subcutaneously — say, by a 
person shooting a poisoned dart, which he afterward 
removes in order to destroy the evidence — the lethal 
constituents are rapidly absorbed. 

“But the starch remains in the wound. It can be 
recovered and studied microscopically and can be 
definitely recognized. Doctor Reichert has pub- 
lished a study of twelve hundred such starches from 
all sorts of plants. In this case, it not only proves 
to be aconitin but the starch granules themselves can 


126 THE WAR TERROR 

be recognized. They came from this piece of arrow 
poison.” 

Every eye was fixed on him now. 

“Besides,” he rapped out, “in the soft soil be- 
neath the window of Profesor Northrop’s room, I 
found footprints. I have only to compare the im- 
pressions I took there and those of the people in this 
room, to prove that, while the real murderer stood 
guard below the window, he sent some one more 
nimble up the rain pipe to shoot the poisoned dart at 
Professor Northrop, and, later, to let down a rope 
by which he, the instigator, could gain the room, re- 
move the dart, and obtain the key to the treasure 
he sought.” 

Kennedy was looking straight at Professor Ber- 
nardo. 

“A friend of mine in Mexico has written me about 
an inscription,” he burst out. “I received the letter 
only to-day. As nearly as I can gather, there was 
an impression that some of Northrop’s stuff would 
be valuable in proving the alleged kinship between 
Mexico and Japan, perhaps to arouse hatred of the 
United States.” 

“Yes — that is all very well,” insisted Kennedy. 
“But how about the treasure?” 

“Treasure?” repeated Bernardo, looking from 
one of us to another. 

“Yes,” pursued Craig relentlessly, “the treasure. 
You are an expert in reading the hieroglyphics. By 
your own statement, you and Northrop had been 
going over the stuff he had sent up. You know it.” 

Bernardo gave a quick glance from Kennedy to 
me. Evidently he saw that the secret was out. 

“Yes,” he said huskily, in a low tone, “Northrop 
and 1 were to follow the directions after we had 


THE ARROW POISON 127 

plotted them out and were to share it together on 
the next expedition, which I could direct as a Mex- 
ican without so much suspicion. I should still have 
shared it with his widow if this unfortunate affair 
had not exposed the secret.” 

Bernardo had risen earnestly. 

“Kennedy,” he cried, “before God, if you will get 
back that stone and keep the secret from going 
further than this room, I will prove what I have 
said by dividing the Mixtec treasure with Mrs. 
Northrop and making her one of the richest widows 
in the country!” 

“That is what I wanted to be sure of,” nodded 
Craig. “Bernardo, Senora Herreria, of whom your 
friend wrote to you from Mexico, has been mur- 
dered in the same way that Professor Northrop 
was. Otaka was sent by her husband to murder 
Northrop, in order that they might obtain the so- 
called ‘Pillar of Death’ and the key to the treasure. 
Then, when the senora was no doubt under the in- 
fluence of sake in the pretty little Oriental bower at 
the curio shop, a quick jab, and Otaka had removed 
one who shared the secret with them.” 

He had turned and faced the pair. 

“Sato,” he added, “you played on the patriotism 
of the senora until you wormed from her the treas- 
ure secret. Evidently rumors of it had spread from 
Mexican Indians to Japanese visitors. And then, 
Otaka, all jealousy over one whom she, no doubt, 
justly considered a rival, completed your work by 
sending her forth to die, unknown, on the street. 
Walter, ring up First Deputy O’Connor. The stone 
is hidden somewhere in the curio shop. We can 
find it without Sato’s help. The quicker such a 


128 THE WAR TERROR 

criminal is lodged safely in jail, the better for hu- 
manity.” 

Sato was on his feet, advancing cautiously toward 
Craig. I knew the dangers, now, of anno-noki, as 
well as the wonders of jujutsu, and, with a leap, I 
bounded past Bernardo and between Sato and Ken- 
nedy. 

How it happened, I don’t know, but, an instant 
later, I was sprawling. 

Before I could recover myself, before even Craig 
had a chance to pull the hair-trigger of his auto- 
matic, Sato had seized the Ainu arrow poison from 
the table, had bitten the little cylinder in half, and 
had crammed the other half into the mouth of 
Otaka. 


CHAPTER XIII 


THE RADIUM ROBBER 

Kennedy simply reached for the telephone and 
called an ambulance. But it was purely perfunctory. 
Dr. Leslie himself was the only official who could 
handle Sato’s case now. 

We had planned a little vacation for ourselves, 
but the planning came to naught. The next night 
we spent on a sleeper. That in itself is work to 
me. 

It all came about through a hurried message from 
Murray Denison, president of the Federal Radium 
Corporation. Nothing would do but that he should 
take both Kennedy and myself with him post-haste 
to Pittsburgh at the first news of what had imme- 
diately been called “the great radium robbery.” 

Of course the newspapers were full of it. The 
very novelty of an ultra-modern cracksman going off 
with something worth upward of a couple of hun- 
dred thousand dollars — and all contained in a few 
platinum tubes which could be tucked away in a vest 
pocket — had something about it powerfully appeal- 
ing to the imagination. 

“Most ingenious, but, you see, the trouble with 
that safe is that it was built to keep radium in — 
not cracksmen out” remarked Kennedy, when Deni- 
son had rushed us from the train to take a look at 
the little safe in the works of the Corporation, 

129 


THE WAR TERROR 


130 

“Breaking into such a safe as this,” added Ken- 
nedy, after a cursory examination, “is simple enough, 
after all.” 

It was, however, a remarkably ingenious contriv- 
ance, about three feet in height and of a weight of 
perhaps a ton and a half, and all to house some- 
thing weighing only a few grains. 

“But,” Denison hastened to explain, “we had to 
protect the radium not only against burglars, but, 
so to speak, against itself. Radium emanations pass 
through steel and experiments have shown that the 
best metal to contain them is lead. So, the difficulty 
was solved by making a steel outer case enclosing 
an inside leaden shell three inches thick.” 

Kennedy had been toying thoughtfully with the 
door. 

“Then the door, too, had to be contrived so as 
to prevent any escape of the emanations through 
joints. It is lathe turned and circular, a ‘dead fit.’ 
By means of a special contrivance any slight loose- 
ness caused by wear and tear of closing can be ad- 
justed. And another feature. That is the appli- 
ance for preventing the loss of emanation when the 
door is opened. Two valves have been inserted into 
the door and before it is opened tubes with mercury 
are passed through which collect and store the 
emanation.” 

“All very nice for the radium,” remarked Craig 
cheerfully. “But the fellow had only to use an elec- 
tric drill and the gram or more of radium was his.” 

“I know that — now,” ruefully persisted Denison. 
“But the safe was designed for us specially. The 
fellow got into it and got away, as far as I can see, 
without leaving a clue.” 


THE RADIUM ROBBER 13 1 

“Except one, of course,” interrupted Kennedy 
quickly. 

Denison looked at him a moment keenly, then 
nodded and said, “Yes — you are right. You mean 
one which he must bear on himself?” 

“Exactly. You can’t carry a gram or more of 
radium bromide long with impunity. The man to 
look for is one who in a few days will have some- 
where on his body a radium burn which will take 
months to heal. The very thing he stole is a verita- 
ble Frankenstein’s monster bent on the destruction 
of the thief himself!” 

Kennedy had meanwhile picked up one of the 
Corporation’s circulars lying on a desk. He ran 
his eye down the list of names. 

“So, Hartley Haughton, the broker, is one of 
your stockholders,” mused Kennedy. 

“Not only one but the one,” replied Denison 
with obvious pride. 

Haughton was a young man who had come re- 
cently into his fortune, and, while no one believed it 
to be large, he had cut quite a figure in Wall Street. 

“You know, I suppose,” added Denison, “that he 
is engaged to Felicie Woods, the daughter of Mrs. 
Courtney Woods?” 

Kennedy did not, but said nothing. 

“A most delightful little girl,” continued Denison 
thoughtfully. “I have known Mrs. Woods for 
some time. She wanted to invest, but I told her 
frankly that this is, after all, a speculation. We 
may not be able to swing so big a proposition, but, 
if not, no one can say we have taken a dollar of 
money from widows and orphans.” 

“I should like to see the works,” nodded Ken- 
nedy approvingly. 


* 3 * 


THE WAR TERROR 


‘‘By all means.” 

The plant was a row of long low buildings of 
brick on the outskirts of the city, once devoted to 
the making of vanadium steel. The ore, as Deni- 
son explained, was brought to Pittsburgh because he 
had found here already a factory which could readily 
be turned into a plant for the extraction of radium. 
Huge baths and vats and crucibles for the various 
acids and alkalis and other processes used in treat- 
ing the ore stood at various points. 

“This must be like extracting gold from sea wa- 
ter,” remarked Kennedy jocosely, impressed by the 
size of the plant as compared to the product. 

“Except that after we get through we have some- 
thing infinitely more precious than gold,” replied 
Denison, “something which warrants the trouble and 
outlay. Yes, the fact is that the percentage of 
radium in all such ores is even less than of gold in 
sea water.” 

“Everything seems to be most carefully guarded,” 
remarked Kennedy as we concluded our tour of the 
well-appointed works. 

He had gone over everything in silence, and now 
at last we had returned to the safe. 

“Yes,” he repeated slowly, as if confirming his 
original impression, “such an amount of radium as 
was stolen wouldn’t occasion immediate discomfort 
to the thief, I suppose, but later no infernal machine 
could be more dangerous to him.” 

I pictured to myself the series of fearful works of 
mischief and terror that might follow, a curse on 
the thief worse than that of the weirdest curses of 
the Orient, the danger to the innocent, and the fact 
that in the hands of a criminal it was an instrument 
for committing crimes that might defy detection. 


THE RADIUM ROBBER 133 

“There is nothing more to do here now,” he con- 
cluded. “I can see nothing for the present except 
to go back to New York. The telltale burn may not 
be the only clue, but if the thief is going to profit by 
his spoils we shall hear about it best in New York 
or by cable from London, Paris, or some other Eu- 
ropean city.” 

Our hurried departure from New York had not 
given us a chance to visit the offices of the Radium 
Corporation for the distribution of the salts them- 
selves. They were in a little old office building on 
William Street, near the drug district and yet 
scarcely a moment’s walk from the financial district. 

“Our head bookkeeper, Miss Wallace, is ill,” re- 
marked Denison when we arrived at the office, “but 
if there is anything I can do to help you, I shall be 
glad to do it. We depend on Miss Wallace a great 
deal. Haughton says she is the brains of the office.” 

Kennedy looked about the well-appointed suite 
curiously. 

“Is this another of those radium safes?” he asked, 
approaching one similar in appearance to that which 
had been broken open already. 

“Yes, only a little larger.” 

“How much is in it?” 

“Most of our supply. I should say about two and 
a half grams. Miss Wallace has the record.” 

“It is of the same construction, I presume,” pur- 
sued Kennedy. “I wonder whether the lead lining 
fits closely to the steel?” 

“I think not,” considered Denison. “As I remem- 
ber there was a sort of insulating air cushion or 
something of the sort.” 

Denison was quite eager to show us about. In 
fact ever since he had hustled us out to view the 


THE WAR TERROR 


134 

scene of the robbery, his high nervous tension had 
given us scarcely a moment’s rest. For hours he 
had talked radium, until I felt that he, like his metal, 
must have an inexhaustible emanation of words. He 
was one of those nervous, active little men, a born 
salesman, whether of ribbons or radium. 

“We have just gone into furnishing radium wa- 
ter,” he went on, bustling about and patting a little 
glass tank. 

I looked closely and could see that the water 
glowed in the dark with a peculiar phosphorescence. 

“The apparatus for the treatment,” he continued, 
“consists of two glass and porcelain receptacles. In- 
side the larger receptacle is placed the smaller, which 
contains a tiny quantity of radium. Into the larger 
receptacle is poured about a gallon of filtered water. 
The emanation from that little speck of radium is 
powerful enough to penetrate its porcelain holder 
and charge the water with its curative properties. 
From a tap at the bottom of the tank the patient 
draws the number of glasses of water a day pre- 
scribed. For such purposes the emanation within 
a day or two of being collected is as good as radium 
itself. Why, this water is five thousand times as 
radioactive as the most radioactive natural spring 
water.” 

“You must have control of a comparatively large 
amount of the metal,” suggested Kennedy. 

“We are, I believe, the largest holders of radium 
in the world,” he answered. “I have estimated that 
all told there are not much more than ten grams, of 
which Madame Curie has perhaps three, while Sir 
Ernest Cassel of London is the holder of perhaps 
as much. We have nearly four grams, leaving about 
3ix or seven tor the rest of the world.” 


THE RADIUM ROBBER -135 

Kennedy nodded and continued to look about. 

“The Radium Corporation,” went on Denison, 
“has several large deposits of radioactive ore in 
Utah in what is known as the Poor Little Rich Val- 
ley, a valley so named because from being about the 
barrenest and most unproductive mineral or agri- 
cultural hole in the hills, the sudden discovery of the 
radioactive deposits has made it almost priceless.” 

He had entered a private office and was looking 
over some mail that had been left on his desk dur- 
ing his absence. 

“Look at this,” he^called, picking up a clipping 
from a newspaper which had been laid there for his 
attention. “You see, we have them aroused.” 

We read the clipping together hastily: 

PLAN TO CORNER WORLD’S RADIUM 

London. — Plans are being matured to form a 
large corporation for the monopoly of the existing 
and future supply of radium throughout the world. 
The company is to be called Universal Radium, Lim- 
ited, and the capital of ten million dollars will be 
offered for public subscription at par simultaneously 
in London, Paris and New York. 

The company’s business will be to acquire mines 
and deposits of radioactive substances as well as the 
control of patents and processes connected with the 
production of radium. The outspoken purpose of 
the new company is to obtain a world-wide monopoly 
and maintain the price. 

“Ah — a competitor,’ 1 commented Kennedy, hand- 
ing back the clipping. 

“Yes. You know radium salts used always to 
come from Europe. Now we are getting ready to 


I 36 THE WAR TERROR 

do some exporting ourselves. Say,” he added ex- 
citedly, “there’s an idea, possibly, in that.” 

“How?” queried Craig. 

“Why, since we should be the principal competi- 
tors to the foreign mines, couldn’t this robbery have 
been due to the machinations of these schemers? To 
my mind, the United States, because of its supply of 
radium-bearing ores, will have to be reckoned with 
first in cornering the market. This is the point, Ken- 
nedy. Would those people who seem to be trying 
to extend their new company all over the world stop 
at anything in order to cripple us at the start?” 

How much longer Denison would have rattled on 
in his effort to explain the robbery, I do not know. 
The telephone rang and a reporter from the Record , 
who had just read my own story in the Star , asked 
for an interview. I knew that it would be only a 
question of minutes now before the other men were 
wearing a path out on the stairs, and we managed 
to get away before the onrush began. 

“Walter,” said Kennedy, as soon as we had 
reached the street. “I want to get in touch with 
Halsey Haughton. How can it be done?” 

I could think of nothing better at that moment 
than to inquire at the Star’s Wall Street office, which 
happened to be around the corner. I knew the men 
down there intimately, and a few minutes later we 
were whisked up in the elevator to the office. 

They were as glad to see me as I was to see them, 
for the story of the robbery had interested the finan- 
cial district perhaps more than any other. 

“Where can I find Halsey Haughton at this 
hour?” I asked. 

“Say,” exclaimed one of the men, “what’s the 
matter? There have been all kinds of rumors in 


THE RADIUM ROBBER 137 
the Street about him to-day. Did you know he was 

ill?” 

“No,” I answered. “Where is he?” 

“Out at the home of his fiancee, who is the daugh- 
ter of Mrs. Courtney Woods, at Glenclair.” 

“What’s the matter?” I persisted. 

“That’s just it. No one seems to know. They 
say — well — they say he has a cancer.” 

Halsey Haughton suffering from cancer? It was 
such an uncommon thing to hear of a young man that 
I looked up quickly in surprise. Then all at once it 
flashed over me that Denison and Kennedy had dis- 
cussed the matter of burns from the stolen radium. 
Might not this be, instead of cancer, a radium 
burn? 

Kennedy, who had been standing a little apart 
from me while I was talking with the boys, signaled 
to me with a quick glance not to say too much, and 
a few minutes later we were on the street again. 

I knew without being told that he was bound by 
the next train to the pretty little New Jersey suburb 
of Glenclair. 

It was late when we arrived, yet Kennedy had 
no hesitation in calling at the quaint home of Mrs. 
Courtney Woods on Woodridge Avenue. 

Mrs. Woods, a well-set-up woman of middle age, 
who had retained her youth and good looks in a re- 
markable manner, met us in the foyer. Briefly, 
Kennedy explained that we had just come in from 
Pittsburgh with Mr. Denison and that it was very 
important that we should see Haughton at once. 

We had hardly told her the object of our visit 
when a young woman of perhaps twenty-two or 
three, a very pretty girl, with all the good looks of 
her mother and a freshness which only youth can 
10 


i 3 8 THE WAR TERROR 

possess, tiptoed quietly downstairs. Her face told 
plainly that she was deeply worried over the illness 
of her fiance. 

“Who is it, mother?” she whispered from the 
turn in the stairs. “Some gentlemen from the com- 
pany? Hartley’s door was open when the bell rang, 
and he thought he heard something said about the 
Pittsburgh affair.” 

Though she had whispered, it had not been for 
the purpose of concealing anything from us, but 
rather that the keen ears of her patient might not 
catch the words. She cast an inquiring glance at 
us. 

“Yes,” responded Kennedy in answer to her look, 
modulating his tone. “We have just left Mr. Deni- 
son at the office. Might we see Mr. Haughton for 
a moment? I am sure that nothing we can say or 
do will be as bad for him as our going away, now 
that he knows that we are here.” 

The two women appeared to consult for a mo- 
ment. 

“Felicie,” called a rather nervous voice from the 
second floor, “is it some one from the company?” 

“Just a moment, Hartley,” she answered, then, 
lower to her mother, added, “I don’t think it can do 
any harm, do you, mother?” 

“You remember the doctor’s orders, my dear.” 

Again the voice called her. 

“Hang the doctor’s orders,”- the girl exclaimed, 
with an air of almost masculinity. “It can’t be half 
so bad as to have him worry. Will you promise not 
to stay long? We expect Dr. Bryant in a few mo- 
ments, anyway.” 


CHAPTER XIY 


THE SPINTHARISCOPE 

We followed her upstairs and into Haughton’s 
room, where he was lying in bed, propped up by 
pillows. Haughton certainly was ill. There was 
no mistake about that. He was a tall, gaunt man 
with an air about him that showed that he found 
illness very irksome. Around his neck was a band- 
age, and some adhesive tape at the back showed 
that a plaster of some sort had been placed there. 

As we entered his eyes traveled restlessly from 
the face of the girl to our own in an inquiring man- 
ner. He stretched out a nervous hand to us, while 
Kennedy in a few short sentences explained how we 
had become associated with the case and what we 
had seen already. 

“And there is not a clue?” he repeated as Craig 
finished. 

“Nothing tangible yet,” reiterated Kennedy. “I 
suppose you have heard of this rumor from London 
of a trust that is going into the radium field inter- 
nationally?” 

“Yes,” he answered, “that is the thing you read 
to me in the morning papers, you remember, Felicie. 
Denison and I have heard such rumors before. If 
it is a fight, then we shall give them a fight. They 
can’t hold us up, if Denison is right in thinking that 
they are at the bottom of this — this robbery.” 

*39 


140 THE WAR TERROR 

“Then you think he may be right?” shot out Ken- 
nedy quickly. 

Haughton glanced nervously from Kennedy to 
me. 

“Really,” he answered, “you see how impossible 
it is for me to have an opinion? You and Denison 
have been over the ground. You know much more 
about it than I do. I am afraid I shall have to 
defer to you.” 

Again we heard the bell downstairs, and a mo- 
ment later a cheery voice, as Mrs. Woods met some 
one down in the foyer, asked, “How is the patient 
to-night?” 

We could not catch the reply. 

“Dr. Bryant, my physician,” put in Haughton. 
“Don’t go. I will assume the responsibility for 
your being here. Hello, Doctor. Why, I’m much 
the same to-night, thank you. At least no worse 
since I took your advice and went to bed.” 

Dr. Bryant was a bluff, hearty man, with the per- 
sonal magnetism which goes with the making of a 
successful physician. He had mounted the stairs 
quietly but rapidly, evidently prepared to see us. 

“Would you mind waiting in this little dressing 
room?” asked the doctor, motioning to another, 
smaller room adjoining. 

He had taken from his pocket a little instrument 
with a dial face like a watch, which he attached to 
Haugh ton’s wrist. 

“A pocket instrument to measure blood pressure,” 
whispered Craig, as we entered the little room. 

While the others were gathered about Haughton, 
we stood in the next room, out of earshot. Ken- 
nedy had leaned his elbow on a chiffonier. As he 
looked about the little room, more from force of 


THE SPINTHARISCOPE 141 

habit than because he thought he might discover 
anything, Kennedy’s eye rested on a glass tray on 
the top in which lay some pins, a collar button or 
two, which Haughton had apparently just taken off, 
and several other little unimportant articles. 

Kennedy bent over to look at the glass tray more 
closely, a puzzled look crossed his face, and with a 
glance at the other room he gathered up the tray 
and its contents. 

“Keep up a good courage,” said Dr. Bryant. 
“You’ll come out all right, Haughton.” Then as 
he left the bedroom he added to us, “Gentlemen, I 
hope you will pardon me, but if you could postpone 
the remainder of your visit until a later day, I am 
sure you will find it more satisfactory.” 

There was an air of finality about the doctor, 
though nothing unpleasant in it. We followed him 
down the stairs, and as we did so, Felicie, who had 
been waiting in a reception room, appeared before 
the portieres, her earnest eyes fixed on his kindly 
face. 

“Dr. Bryant,” she appealed, “is he — is he, really 
— so badly?” 

The Doctor, who had apparently known her all 
her life, reached down and took one of her hands, 
patting it with his own in a fatherly way. “Don’t 
worry, little girl,” he encouraged. “We are going 
to come out all right — all right.” 

She turned from him to us and, with a bright 
forced smile which showed the stuff she was made 
of, bade us good night. 

Outside, the Doctor, apparently regretting that he 
had virtually forced us out, paused before his car. 
“Are you going down toward the station? Yes? 


142 THE WAR TERROR 

I am going that far. I should be glad to drive you 
there.” 

Kennedy climbed into the front seat, leaving me 
in the rear where the wind wafted me their brief 
conversation as we sped down Woodbridge Avenue. 

“What seems to be the trouble?” asked Craig. 

“Very high blood pressure, for one thing,” re- 
plied the Doctor frankly. 

“For which the latest thing is the radium water 
cure, I suppose?” ventured Kennedy. 

“Well, radioactive water is one cure for harden- 
ing of the arteries. But I didn’t say he had harden- 
ing of the arteries. Still, he is taking the water, 
with good results. You are from the company?” 

Kennedy nodded. 

“It was the radium water that first interested him 
in it. Why, we found a pressure of 230 pounds, 
which is frightful, and we have brought it down to 
150, not far from normal.” 

“Still that could have nothing to do with the sore 
on his neck,” hazarded Kennedy. 

The Doctor looked at him quickly, then ahead at 
the path of light which his motor shed on the road. 

He said nothing, but I fancied that even he felt 
there was something strange in his silence over the 
new complication. He did not give Kennedy a 
chance to ask whether there were any other such 
sores. 

“At any rate,” he said, as he throttled down his 
engine with a flourish before the pretty little Glen- 
clair station, “that girl needn’t worry.” 

There was evidently no use in trying to extract 
anything further from him. He had said all that 
medical ethics or detective skill could get from him. 


THE SPINTHARISCOPE 143 

We thanked him and turned to the ticket window to 
see how long we should have to wait 

“Either that doctor doesn’t know what he is talk- 
ing about or he is concealing something,” remarked 
Craig, as we paced up and down the platform. “I 
am inclined to read the enigma in the latter way.” 

Nothing more passed between us during the jour- 
ney back, and we hurried directly to the laboratory, 
late as it was. Kennedy had evidently been revolv- 
ing something over and over in his mind, for the 
moment he had switched on the light, he unlocked 
one of his air- and dust-proof cabinets and took from 
it an instrument which he placed on a table before 
him. 

It was a peculiar-looking instrument, like a round 
glass electric battery with a cylinder atop, smaller 
and sticking up like a safety valve. On that were 
an arm, a dial, and a lens fixed in such a way as to 
read the dial. I could not see what else the rather 
complicated little apparatus consisted of, but inside, 
when Kennedy brought near it the pole of a static 
electric machine two delicate thin leaves of gold 
seemed to fly wide apart when it was charged. 

Kennedy had brought the glass tray near the 
thing. Instantly the leaves collapsed and he made 
a reading through the lens. 

“What is it?” I asked. 

“A radioscope,” he replied, still observing the 
scale. “Really a very sensitive gold leaf electro- 
scope, devised by one of the students of Madame 
Curie. This method of detection is far more sensi- 
tive even than the spectroscope.” 

“What does it mean when the leaves collapse?” I 
asked. 

“Radium has been near that tray,” he answered. 


THE WAR TERROR 


144 

“It is radioactive. I suspected it first when I saw 
that violet color. That is what radium does to that 
kind of glass. You see, if radium exists in a gram 
of inactive matter only to the extent of one in ten- 
thousand million parts its presence can be readily 
detected by this radioscope, and everything that has 
been rendered radioactive is the same. Ordinarily 
the air between the gold leaves is insulating. Bring- 
ing something radioactive near them renders the air 
a good conductor and the leaves fall under the radia- 
tion.” 

“Wonderful !” I exclaimed, marveling at the deli- 
cacy of it. 

“Take radium water,” he went on, “sufficiently 
impregnated with radium emanations to be luminous 
in the dark, like that water of Denison’s. It would 
do the same. In fact all mineral waters and the 
so-called curative muds like fango are slightly radio- 
active. There seems to be a little radium every- 
where on earth that experiments have been made, 
even in the interiors of buildings. It is ubiquitous. 
We are surrounded and permeated by radiations — 
that soil out there on the campus, the air of this 
room, all. But,” he added contemplatively, “there 
is something different about that tray. A lot of 
radium has been near that, and recently.” 

“How about that bandage about Haughton’s 
neck?” I asked suddenly. “Do you think radium 
could have had anything to do with that?” 

“Well, as to burns, there is no particular imme- 
diate effect usually, and sometimes even up to two 
weeks or more, unless the exposure has been long 
and to a considerable quantity. Of course radium 
keeps itself three or four degrees warmer than other 
things about it constantly. But that isn’t what does 


THE SPINTHARISCOPE 145 

the harm. It is continually emitting little corpuscles, 
which I’ll explain some other time, traveling all the 
way from twenty to one hundred and thirty thousand 
miles a second, and these corpuscles blister and cor- 
rode the flesh like quick-moving missiles bombarding 
it. The gravity of such lesions increases with the 
purity of the radium. For instance I have known 
an exposure of half an hour to a comparatively 
small quantity through a tube, a box and the clothes 
to produce a blister fifteen days later. Curie said he 
wouldn’t trust himself in a room with a kilogram of 
it. It would destroy his eyesight, burn off his skin 
and kill him eventually. Why, even after a slight 
exposure your clothes are radioactive — the electro- 
scope will show that.” 

He was still fumbling with the glass plate and the 
various articles on it. 

“There’s something very peculiar about all this,” 
he muttered, almost to himself. 

Tired by the quick succession of events of the past 
two days, I left Kennedy still experimenting in his 
laboratory and retired, still wondering when the 
real clue was to develop. Who could it have been 
who bore the tell-tale burn? Was the mark hid- 
den by the bandage about Haughton’s neck the brand 
of the stolen tubes? Or were there other marks on 
his body which we could not see? 

No answer came to me, and I fell asleep and woke 
up without a radiation of light on the subject. Ken- 
nedy spent the greater part of the day still at work 
at his laboratory, performing some very delicate ex- 
periments. Finding nothing to do there, I went 
down to the Star office and spent my time reading 
the reports that came in from the small army of re- 
porters who had been assigned to run down clues in 


1 46 THE WAR TERROR 

the case which was the sensation of the moment. I 
have always felt my own lips sealed in such cases, 
until the time came that the story was complete and 
Kennedy released me from any further need of si- 
lence. The weird and impossible stories which came 
in not only to the Star but to the other papers surely 
did make passable copy in this instance, but with my 
knowledge of the case I could see that not one of 
them brought us a step nearer the truth. 

One thing which uniformly puzzled the newspa- 
pers was the illness of Haughton and his enforced 
idleness at a time which was of so much importance 
to the company which he had promoted and indeed 
very largely financed. Then, of course, there was 
the romantic side of his engagement to Felicie 
Woods. 

Just what connection Felicie Woods had with the 
radium robbery if any, I was myself unable quite to 
fathom. Still, that made no difference to the papers. 
She was pretty and therefore they published her pic- 
ture, three columns deep, with Haughton and Deni- 
son, who were intimately concerned with the real 
loss in little ovals perhaps an inch across and two 
inches in the opposite dimension. 

The late afternoon news editions had gone to 
press, and I had given up in despair, determined to 
go up to the laboratory and sit around idly watching 
Kennedy with his mystifying experiments, in prefer- 
ence to waiting for him to summon me. 

I had scarcely arrived and settled myself to an 
impatient watch, when an automobile drove up furi- 
ously, and Denison himself, very excited, jumped out 
and dashed into the laboratory. 

“What’s the matter?” asked Kennedy, looking 
up from a test tube which he had been examining, 


THE SPINTHARISCOPE 147 

with an air for all the world expressive of “Why so 
hot, little man?” 

“Pve had a threat,” ejaculated Denison. 

He laid on one of the laboratory tables a letter, 
without heading and without signature, written in a 
disguised hand, with an evident attempt to simulate 
the cramped script of a foreign penmanship. 

“I know who did the Pittsburgh job. The same 
party is out to ruin Federal Radium. Remember 
Pittsburgh and be prepared! 

“A Stockholder.” 

“Well?” demanded Kennedy, looking up. 

“That can have only one meaning,” asserted Deni- 
son. 

“What is that?” inquired Kennedy coolly, as if to 
confirm his own interpretation. 

“Why, another robbery — here in New York, of 
course.” 

“But who would do it?” I asked. 

“Who?” repeated Denison. “Some one repre- 
senting that European combine, of course. That is 
only part of the Trust method — ruin of competitors 
whom they cannot absorb.” 

“Then you have refused to go into the combine? 
You know who is backing it?” 

“No — no,” admitted Denison reluctantly. “We 
have only signified our intent to go it alone, as often 
as anyone either with or without authority has 
offered to buy us out. No, I do not even know who 
the people are. They never act in the open. The 
only hints I have ever received were through per- 
fectly reputable brokers acting for others.” 

“Does Haughton know of this note?” asked Ken- 
nedy. 


i 4 8 THE WAR TERROR 

‘‘Yes. As soon as I received it, I called him up.” 

“What did he say?” 

“He said to disregard it. But — you know what 
condition he is in. I don’t know what to do, whether 
to surround the office by a squad of detectives or re- 
move the radium to a regular safety deposit vault, 
even at the loss of the emanation. Haughton has 
left it to me.” 

Suddenly the thought flashed across my mind that 
perhaps Haughton could act in this uninterested 
fashion because he had no fear of ruin either way. 
Might he not be playing a game with the combina- 
tion in which he had protected himself so that he 
would win, no matter what happened? 

“What shall I do?” asked Denison. “It is get- 
ting late.” 

“Neither,” decided Kennedy. 

Denison shook his head. “No,” he said, “I shall 
have some one watch there, anyhow.” 


CHAPTER XV 


THE ASPHYXIATING SAFE 

Denison had scarcely gone to arrange for some 
one to watch the office that night, when Kennedy, 
having gathered up his radioscope and packed into 
a parcel a few other things from various cabinets, 
announced : “Walter, I must see that Miss Wallace, 
right away. Denison has already given me her ad- 
dress. Call a cab while I finish clearing up here. I 
don’t like the looks of this thing, even if Haughton 
does neglect it.” 

We found Miss Wallace at a modest boarding- 
house in an old but still respectable part of the city. 
She was a very pretty girl, of the slender type, 
rather a business woman than one given much to 
amusement. She had been ill and was still ill. That 
was evident from the solicitous way in which the 
motherly landlady scrutinized two strange callers. 

Kennedy presented a card from Denison, and she 
came down to the parlor to see us. 

“Miss Wallace,” began Kennedy, “I know it is 
almost cruel to trouble you when you are not feeling 
like office work, but since the robbery of the safe at 
Pittsburgh, there have been threats of a robbery of 
the New York office.” 

She started involuntarily, and it was evident, I 
thought, that she was in a very highstrung state. 

149 


1 5 o THE WAR TERROR 

“Oh,” she cried, “why, the loss means ruin to Mr. 
Denison!” 

There were genuine tears in her eyes as she said 
it. 

“I thought you would be willing to aid us,” pur- 
sued Kennedy sympathetically. “Now, for one 
thing, I want to be perfectly sure just how much 
radium the Corporation owns, or rather owned be- 
fore the first robbery.” 

“The books will show it,” she said simply. 

“They will ?” commented Kennedy. “Then if you 
will explain to me briefly just the system you used 
in keeping account of it, perhaps I need not trouble 
you any more.” 

“I’ll go down there with you,” she answered 
bravely. “I’m better to-day, anyhow, I think.” 

She had risen, but it was evident that she was not 
as strong as she wanted us to think. 

“The least I can do is to make it as easy as pos- 
sible by going in a car,” remarked Kennedy, follow- 
ing her into the hall where there was a telephone. 

The hallway was perfectly dark, yet as she pre- 
ceded us I could see that the diamond pin which 
held her collar in the back sparkled as if a lighted 
candle had been brought near it. I had noticed in 
the parlor that she wore a handsome tortoiseshell 
comb set with what I thought were other brilliants, 
but when I looked I saw now that there was not 
the same sparkle to the comb which held her dark 
hair in a soft mass. I noticed these little things 
at the time, not because I thought they had any im- 
portance, but merely by chance, wondering at the 
sparkle of the one diamond which had caught my 
eye. 


THE ASPHYXIATING SAFE 15 1 

“What do you make of her?” I asked as Kennedy 
finished telephoning. 

“A very charming and capable girl,” he answered 
noncommittally. 

“Did you notice how that diamond in her neck 
sparkled?” I asked quickly. 

He nodded. Evidently it had attracted his atten- 
tion, too. 

“What makes it?” I pursued. 

“Well, you know radium rays will make a dia« 
mond fluoresce in the dark.” 

“Yes,” I objected, “but how about those in the 
comb?” 

“Paste, probably,” he answered tersely, as we 
heard her foot on the landing. “The rays won’t 
affect paste.” 

It was indeed a shame to take advantage of Miss 
Wallace’s loyalty to Denison, but she was so game 
about it that I knew only the utmost necessity on 
Kennedy’s part would have prompted him to do it. 
She had a key to the office so that it was not neces- 
sary to wait for Denison, if indeed we could have 
found him. 

Together she and Kennedy went over the records. 
It seemed that there were in the safe twenty-five 
platinum tubes of one hundred milligrams each, and 
that there had been twelve of the same amount at 
Pittsburgh. Little as it seemed in weight it repre- 
sented a fabulous fortune. 

“You have not the combination?” inquired Ken- 
nedy. 

“No. Only Mr. Denison has that. What are 
you going to do to protect the safe to-night?” she 
asked. 

“Nothing especially,” evaded Kennedy. 


152 THE WAR TERROR 

“Nothing?” she repeated In amazement 

“I have another plan,” he said, watching her in- 
tently. “Miss Wallace, it was too much to ask you 
to come down here. You are ill.” 

She was indeed quite pale, as if the excitement had 
been an overexertion. 

“No, indeed,” she persisted. Then, feeling her 
own weakness, she moved toward the door of Deni- 
son’s office where there was a leather couch. “Let 
me rest here a moment. I do feel queer. I ” 

She would have fallen if he had not sprung for- 
ward and caught her as she sank to the floor, over- 
come by the exertion. 

Together we carried her in to the couch, and as 
we did so the comb from her hair clattered to the 
floor. 

Craig threw open the window, and bathed her 
face with water until there was a faint flutter of the 
eyelids. 

“Walter,” he said, as she began to revive, “I 
leave her to you. Keep her quiet for a few mo- 
ments. She has unintentionally given me just the 
opportunity I want.” 

While she was yet hovering between conscious- 
ness and unconsciousness on the couch, he had un- 
wrapped the package which he had brought with 
him. For a moment he held the comb which she 
had dropped near the radioscope. With a low ex- 
clamation of surprise he shoved it into his pocket. 

Then from the package he drew a heavy piece of 
apparatus which looked as if it might be the motor 
part of an electric fan, only in place of the fan he 
fitted a long, slim, vicious-looking steel bit. A flexi- 
ble wire attached the thing to the electric light cir- 
cuit and I knew that it was an electric drill. With 


THE ASPHYXIATING SAFE 153 

his coat off he tugged at the little radium safe until 
he had moved it out, then dropped on his knees be- 
hind it and switched the current on in the electric 
drill. 

It was a tedious process to drill through the steel 
of the outer casing of the safe and it was getting 
late. I shut the door to the office so that Miss Wal- 
lace could not see. 

At last by the cessation of the low hum of the 
boring, I knew that he had struck the inner lead lin- 
ing. Quietly I opened the door and stepped out. 
He was injecting something from an hermetically 
sealed lead tube into the opening he had made and 
allowing it to run between the two linings of lead 
and steel. Then using the tube itself he sealed the 
opening he had made and dabbed a little black over 
it. 

Quickly he shoved the safe back, then around it 
concealed several small coils with wires also con- 
cealed and leading out through a window to a court. 

“We’ll catch the fellow this time,” he remarked 
as he worked. “If you ever have any idea, Walter, 
of going into the burglary business, it would be well 
to ascertain if the safes have any of these little 
selenium cells as suggested by my friend, Mr. Ham- 
mer, the inventor. For by them an alarm can be 
given miles away the moment an intruder’s bull’s- 
eye falls on a hidden cell sensitive to light.” 

While I was delegated to take Miss Wallace 
home, Kennedy made arrangements with a small 
shopkeeper on the ground floor of a building that 
backed up on the court for the use of his back room 
that night, and had already set up a bell actuated 
by a system of relays which the weak current from 
the selenium cells could operate. 

n 


i 5 4 THE WAR TERROR 

It was not until nearly midnight that he was ready 
to leave the laboratory again, where he had been 
busily engaged in studying the tortoiseshell comb 
which Miss Wallace in her weakness had forgotten. 

The little shopkeeper let us in sleepily and Ken- 
nedy deposited a large round package on a chair in 
the back of the shop, as well as a long piece of rub- 
ber tubing. Nothing had happened so far. 

As we waited the shopkeeper, now wide awake 
and not at all unconvinced that we were bent on some 
criminal operation, hung around. Kennedy did not 
seem to care. He drew from his pocket a little 
shiny brass instrument in a lead case, which looked 
like an abbreviated microscope. 

“Look through it,” he said, handing it to me. 

I looked and could see thousands of minute 

enq TiTC 

“What is it?” I asked. 

“A spinthariscope. In that it is possible to watch 
the bombardment of the countless little corpuscles 
thrown off by radium, as they strike on the zinc 
blende crystal which forms the base. When radium 
was originally discovered, the interest was merely in 
its curious properties, its power to emit invisible 
rays which penetrated solid substances and rendered 
things fluorescent, of expending energy without ap- 
parent loss. 

“Then came the discovery,” he went on, “of its 
curative powers. But the first results were not con- 
vincing. Still, now that we know the reasons why 
radium may be dangerous and how to protect our- 
selves against them we know we possess one of the 
most wonderful of curative agencies.” 

I was thinking rather of the dangers than of the 


THE ASPHYXIATING SAFE 1551 

beneficence of radium just now, but Kennedy con- 
tinued. 

“It has cured many malignant growths that 
seemed hopeless, brought back destroyed cells, ex- 
ercised good effects in diseases of the liver and intes- 
tines and even the baffling diseases of the arteries. 
The reason why harm, at first, as well as good came, 
is now understood. Radium emits, as I told you be- 
fore, three kinds of rays, the alpha, beta, and gamma 
rays, each with different properties. The emana- 
tion is another matter. It does not concern us in 
this case, as you will see.” 

Fascinated as I was by the mystery of the case, 
I began to see that he was gradually arriving at an 
explanation which had baffled everyone else. 

“Now, the alpha rays are the shortest,” he 
launched forth, “in length let us say one inch. They 
exert a very destructive effect on healthy tissue. 
That is the cause of injury. They are stopped by 
glass, aluminum and other metals, and are really 
particles charged with positive electricity. The beta 
rays come next, say, about an inch and a half. They 
stimulate cell growth. Therefore they are danger- 
ous in cancer, though good in other ways. They 
can be stopped by lead, and are really particles 
charged with negative electricity. The gamma rays 
are the longest, perhaps three inches long, and it is 
these rays which effect cures, for they check the ab- 
normal and stimulate the normal cells. They pene- 
trate lead. Lead seems to filter them out from the 
other rays. And at three inches the other rays don’t 
reach, anyhow. The gamma rays are not charged 
with electricity at all, apparently.” 

He had brought a little magnet near the spinthari- 
scope. I looked into it. 


THE WAR TERROR 


156 

“A magnet,” he explained, “shows the difference 
between the alpha, beta, and gamma rays. You see 
those weak and wobbly rays that seem to fall to one 
side? Those are the alpha rays. They have a 
strong action, though, on tissues and cells. Those 
falling in the other direction are the beta rays. The 
gamma rays seem to flow straight.” 

“Then it is the alpha rays with which we are con- 
cerned mostly now?” I queried, looking up. 

“Exactly. That is why, when radium is unpro- 
tected or insufficiently protected and comes too near, 
it is destructive of healthy cells, produces burns, 
sores, which are most difficult to heal. It is with 
the explanation of such sores that we must deal.” 

It was growing late. We had waited patiently 
now for some time. Kennedy had evidently re- 
served this explanation, knowing we should have to 
wait. Still nothing happened. 

Added to the mystery of the violet-colored glass 
plate was now that of the luminescent diamond. I 
was about to ask Kennedy point-blank what he 
thought of them, when suddenly the little bell before 
us began to buzz feebly under the influence of a cur- 
rent. 

I gave a start. The faithful little selenium cell 
burglar alarm had done the trick. I knew that 
selenium was a good conductor of electricity in the 
light, poor in the dark. Some one had, therefore, 
flashed a light on one of the cells in the Corporation 
office. It was the moment for which Kennedy had 
prepared. 

Seizing the round package and the tubing, he 
dashed out on the street and around the corner. He 
tried the door opening into the Radium Corpora- 
tion hallway. It was closed, but unlocked. As it 


THE ASPHYXIATING SAFE 157 

yielded and we stumbled in, up the old worn wooden 
stairs of the building, I knew that there must be 
some one there. 

A terrific, penetrating, almost stunning odor 
seemed to permeate the air even in the hall. 

Kennedy paused at the door of the office, tried 
it, found it unlocked, but did not open it. 

“That smell is ethyldichloracetate,” he explained. 
“That was what I injected into the air cushion of 
that safe between the two linings. I suppose my 
man here used an electric drill. He might have 
used thermit or an oxyacetylene blowpipe for all I 
would care. These fumes would discourage a 
cracksman from ‘soup’ — to nuts,” he laughed, thor- 
oughly pleased at the protection modern science had 
enabled him to devise. 

As we stood an instant by the door, I realized 
what had happened. We had captured our man. 
He was asphyxiated! 

Yet how were we to get to him? Would Craig 
leave him in there, perhaps to die? To go in our- 
selves meant to share his fate, whatever might be 
the effect of the drug. 

Kennedy had torn the wrapping off the package. 
From it he drew a huge globe with bulging windows 
of glass in the front and several curious arrange- 
ments on it at other points. To it he fitted the rub- 
ber tubing and a little pump. Then he placed the 
globe over his head, like a diver’s helmet, and fas- 
tened some air-tight rubber arrangement about his 
neck and shoulders. 

“Pump, Walter 1 ” he shouted. “This is an oxygen 
helmet such as is used in entering mines filled with 
deadly gases.” 

Without another word he was gone into the black- 


158 THE WAR TERROR 

ness of the noxious stifle which filled the Radium 
Corporation office since the cracksman had struck 
the unexpected pocket of rapidly evaporating stuff. 

I pumped furiously. 

Inside I could hear him blundering around. What 
was he doing? 

He was coming back slowly. Was he, too, over- 
come? 

As he emerged into the darkness of the hallway 
where I myself was almost sickened, I saw that he 
was dragging with him a limp form. 

A rush of outside air from the street door seemed 
to clear things a little. Kennedy tore off the oxygen 
helmet and dropped down on his knees beside the 
figure, working its arms in the most approved man- 
ner of resuscitation. 

“I think we can do it without calling on the pul- 
motor,” he panted. “Walter, the fumes have cleared 
away enough now in the outside office. Open a win- 
dow — and keep that street door open, too.” 

I did so, found the switch and turned on the 
lights. 

It was Denison himself ! 

For many minutes Kennedy worked over him. I 
bent down, loosened his collar and shirt, and looked 
eagerly at his chest for the tell-tale marks of the 
radium which I felt sure must be there. There was 
not even a discoloration. 

Not a word was said, as Kennedy brought the 
stupefied little man around. 

Denison, pale, shaken, was leaning back now in 
a big office chair, gasping and holding his head. 

Kennedy, before him, reached down into his 
pocket and handed him the spinthariscope. 

“You see that?” he demanded. 


THE ASPHYXIATING SAFE 159 

Denison looked through the eyepiece. 

“Wh — where did you get so much of it?” he 
asked, a queer look on his face. 

“I got that bit of radium from the base of the 
collar button of Hartley Haughton,” replied Kern 
nedy quietly, “a collar button which some one inti- 
mate with him had substituted for his own, bringing 
that deadly radium with only the minutest protec- 
tion of a thin strip of metal close to the back of his 
neck, near the spinal cord and the medulla oblongata 
which controls blood pressure. That collar button 
was worse than the poisoned rings of the Borgias. 
And there is more radium in the pretty gift of a tor- 
toiseshell comb with its paste diamonds which Miss 
Wallace wore in her hair. Only a fraction of an 
inch, not enough to cut off the deadly alpha rays, 
protected the wearers of those articles.” 

He paused a moment, while surging through my 
mind came one after another the explanations of the 
hitherto inexplicable. Denison seemed almost to 
cringe in the chair, weak already from the fumes. 

“Besides,” went on Kennedy remorselessly, “when 
I went in there to drag you out, I saw the safe open. 
I looked. There was nothing in those pretty plati- 
num tubes, as I suspected. European trust — bah! 
All the cheap devices of a faker with a confederate 
in London to send a cablegram — and another in 
New York to send a threatening letter.” 

Kennedy extended an accusing forefinger at the 
man cowering before him. 

“This is nothing but a get-rich-quick scheme, 
Denison. There never was a milligram of radium in 
the Poor Little Rich Valley, not a milligram here 
in all the carefully kept reports of Miss Wallace — * 
except what was bought outside by the Corporation 


i6o THE WAR TERROR 

with the money it collected from its dupes. Haugh- 
ton has been fleeced. Miss Wallace, blinded by her 
loyalty to you — you will always find such a faithful 
girl in such schemes as yours — has been fooled. 

“And how did you repay it? What was cleverer, 
you said to yourself, than to seem to be robbed of 
what you never had, to blame it on a bitter rival 
who never existed? Then to make assurance doubly 
sure, you planned to disable, perhaps get rid of the 
come-on whom you had trimmed, and the faithful 
girl whose eyes you had blinded to your gigantic 
swindle. 

“Denison,” concluded Kennedy, as the man drew 
back, his very face convicting him, “Denison, you 
are the radium robber — robber in another sensei” 


CHAPTER XVI 


THE DEAD LINE 

Maiden Lane, no less than Wall Street, was 
deeply interested in the radium case. In fact, it 
seemed that one case in this section of the city led 
to another. 

Naturally, the Star and the other papers made 
much of the capture of Denison. Still, I was not 
prepared for the host of Maiden Lane cases that 
followed. Many of them were essentially trivial. 
But one proved to be of extreme importance. 

“Professor Kennedy, I have just heard of your 
radium case, and I — I feel that I can — trust you.” 

There was a note of appeal in the hesitating voice 
of the tall, heavily veiled woman whose card had 
been sent up to us with a nervous “Urgent” writ- 
ten across its face. 

It was very early in the morning, but our visitor 
was evidently completely unnerved by some news 
which she had just received and which had sent her 
posting to see Craig. 

Kennedy met her gaze directly with a look that 
arrested her involuntary effort to avoid it again. 
She must have read in his eyes more than in his 
words that she might trust him. 

“I — I have a confession to make,” she faltered. 

“Please sit down, Mrs. Moulton,” he said simply. 
161 


1 62 THE WAR TERROR 

“It is my business to receive confidences — and to 
keep them.” 

She sank into, rather than sat down in, the deep 
leather rocker beside his desk, and now for the first 
time raised her veil. 

Antoinette Moulton was indeed stunning, an ex- 
quisite creature with a wonderful charm of slender 
youth, brightness of eye and brunette radiance. 

I knew that she had been on the musical comedy 
stage and had had a rapid rise to a star part before 
her marriage to Lynn Moulton, the wealthy law- 
yer, almost twice her age. I knew also that she 
had given up the stage, apparently without a regret. 
Yet there was something strange about the air of 
secrecy of her visit. Was there a hint in it of a 
disagreement between the Moultons, I wondered, 
as I waited while Kennedy reassured her. 

Her distress was so unconcealed that Craig, for 
the moment, laid aside his ordinary inquisitorial 
manner. “Tell me just as much or just as little as 
you choose, Mrs. Moulton,” he added tactfully. “I 
will do my best.” 

A look almost of gratitude crossed her face. 

“When we were married,” she began again, “my 
husband gave me a beautiful diamond necklace. Oh, 
it must have been worth a hundred thousand dol- 
lars easily. It was splendid. Everyone has heard 
of it. You know, Lynn — er — Mr. Moulton, has al- 
ways been an enthusiastic collector of jewels.” 

She paused again and Kennedy nodded reassur- 
ingly. I knew the thought in his mind. Moulton 
had collected one gem that was incomparable with 
all the hundred thousand dollar necklaces in exist- 
ence. 

“Several months ago.” she went on rapidly, still 


THE DEAD LINE 


163 

avoiding his eyes and forcing the words from her 
reluctant lips, “I — oh, I needed money — terribly.” 

She had risen and faced him, pressing her daintily 
gloved hands together in a little tremble of emotion 
which was none the less genuine because she had 
studied the art of emotion. 

“I took the necklace to a jeweler, Herman Schloss, 
of Maiden Lane, a man with whom my husband had 
often had dealings and whom I thought I could trust. 
Under a promise of secrecy he loaned me fifty thou- 
sand dollars on it and had an exact replica in paste 
made by one of his best workmen. This morning, 
just now, Mr. Schloss telephoned me that his safe 
had been robbed last night. My necklace is gone!” 

She threw out her hands in a wildly appealing 
gesture. 

“And if Lynn finds that the necklace in our wall 
safe is of paste — as he will find, for he is an expert 
in diamonds — oh — what shall I do? Can’t you — 
can’t you find my necklace?” 

Kennedy was following her now eagerly. “You 
were blackmailed out of the money?” he queried 
casually, masking his question. 

There was a sudden, impulsive drooping of her 
mouth, an evasion and keen wariness in her eyes. 
“I can’t see that that has anything to do with the 
robbery,” she answered in a low voice. 

“I beg your pardon,” corrected Kennedy quickly. 
“Perhaps not. I’m sorry. Force of habit, I sup- 
pose. You don’t know anything more about the 
robbery?” 

“N — no, only that it seems impossible that it 
could have happened in a place that has the won- 
derful burglar alarm protection that Mr. Schloss 
described to me.” 


1 64 THE WAR TERROR 

“You know him pretty well?” 

“Only through this transaction,” she replied 
hastily. “I wish to heaven I had never heard of 
him.” 

The telephone rang insistently. 

“Mrs. Moulton,” said Kennedy, as he returned 
the receiver to the hook, “it may interest you to 
know that the burglar alarm company has just called 
me up about the same case. If I had need of an 
added incentive, which I hope you will believe I 
have not, that might furnish it. I will do my best,” 
he repeated. 

“Thank you — a thousand times,” she cried fer- 
vently, and, had I been Craig, I think I should have 
needed no more thanks than the look she gave him 
as he accompanied her to the door of our apart- 
ment. 

It was still early and the eager crowds were push- 
ing their way to business through the narrow net- 
work of downtown streets as Kennedy and I entered 
a large office on lower Broadway in the heart of the 
jewelry trade and financial district. 

“One of the most amazing robberies that has 
ever been attempted has been reported to us this 
morning,” announced James McLear, manager of 
the Hale Electric Protection, adding with a look 
half of anxiety, half of skepticism, “that is, if it is 
true.” 

McLear was a stocky man, of powerful build and 
voice and a general appearance of having been once 
well connected with the city detective force before 
an attractive offer had taken him into this position 
of great responsibility. 

“Herman Schloss, one of the best known of 
Maiden Lane jewelers,” he continued, “has been 


THE DEAD LINE 165 

robbed of goods worth two or three hundred thou- 
sand dollars — and in spite of every modern protec- 
tion. So that you will get it clearly, let me show 
you what we do here.” 

He ushered us into a large room, on the walls of 
which were hundreds of little indicators. From the 
front they looked like rows of little square compart- 
ments, tier on tier, about the size of ordinary post- 
office boxes. Closer examination showed that each 
was equipped with a delicate needle arranged to 
oscillate backward and forward upon the very 
minutest interference with the electric current. Un- 
der the boxes, each of which bore a number, was a 
series of drops and buzzers numbered to correspond 
with the boxes. 

“In nearly every office in Maiden Lane where 
gems and valuable jewelry are stored,” explained 
McLear, “this electrical system of ours is installed. 
When the safes are closed at night and the doors 
swung together, a current of electricity is constantly 
shooting around the safes, conducted by cleverly con- 
cealed wires. These wires are picked up by a cable 
system which finds its way to this central office. 
Once here, the wires are safeguarded in such man- 
ner that foreign currents from other wires or from 
lightning cannot disturb the system.” 

We looked with intense interest at this huge elec- 
trical pulse that felt every change over so vast and 
rich an area. 

“Passing a big dividing board,” he went on, “they 
are distributed and connected each in its place to 
the delicate tangent galvanometers and sensitive in- 
dicators you see in this room. These instantly an- 
nounce the most minute change in the working of 
the current, and each office has a distinct separate 


1 66 THE WAR TERROR 

metallic circuit. Why, even a hole as small as a lead 
pencil in anything protected would sound the alarm 
here.” 

Kennedy nodded appreciatively. 

“You see,” continued McLear, glad to be able to 
talk to one who followed him so closely, “it is an- 
other evidence of science finding for us greater se- 
curity in the use of a tiny electric wire than in mas- 
sive walls of steel and intricate lock devices. But 
here is a case in which, it seems, every known pro- 
tection has failed. We can’t afford to pass that by. 
If we have fallen down we want to know how, as 
well as to catch the burglar.” 

“How are the signals given?” I asked. 

“Well, when the day’s business is over, for in- 
stance, Schloss would swing the heavy safe doors 
together and over them place the doors of a wooden 
cabinet. That signals an alarm to us here. We 
answer it and if the proper signal is returned, all 
right. After that no one can tamper with the safe 
later in the night without sounding an alarm that 
would bring a quick investigation.” 

“But suppose that it became necessary to open 
the safe before the next morning. Might not some 
trusted employee return to the office, open it, give 
the proper signals and loot the safe?” 

“No indeed,” he answered confidently. “The 
very moment anyone touches the cabinet, the alarm 
is sounded. Even if the proper code signal is re- 
turned, it is not sufficient. A couple of our trusted 
men from the central office hustle around there 
anyhow and they don’t leave until they are satisfied 
that everything is right. We have the authorized 
signatures on hand of those who are supposed to 


THE DEAD LINE 167 

open the safe and a duplicate of one of them must 
be given or there is an arrest.” 

McLear considered for a moment. 

“For instance, Schloss, like all the rest, was as- 
signed a box in which was deposited a sealed en- 
velope containing a key to the office and his own 
signature, in this case, since he alone knew the 
combination. Now, when an alarm is sounded, as 
it was last night, and the key removed to gain 
entrance to the office, a record is made and the key 
has to be sealed up again by Schloss. A report is 
also submitted showing when the signals are re- 
ceived and anything else that is worth recording. 
Last night our men found nothing wrong, appar- 
ently. But this morning we learn of the robbery.” 

“The point is, then,” ruminated Kennedy, “what 
happened in the interval between the ringing of the 
alarm and the arrival of the special officers? I think 
I’ll drop around and look Schloss’ place over,” he 
added quietly, evidently eager to begin at the actual 
scene of the crime. 

On the door of the office to which McLear took 
us was one of those small blue plates which chance 
visitors to Maiden Lane must have seen often. To 
the initiated — be he crook or jeweler — this simple 
sign means that the merchant is a member of the 
Jewelers’ Security Alliance, enough in itself, it would 
seem, to make the boldest burglar hesitate. For it 
is the motto of this organization to “get” the thief 
at any cost and at any time. Still, it had not de- 
terred the burglar in this instance. 

“I know people are going to think it is a fake 
burglary,” exclaimed Schloss, a stout, prosperous- 
looking gem broker, as we introduced ourselves. 
“But over two hundred thousands dollars’ worth of 


1 68 THE WAR TERROR 

stones are gone,” he half groaned. “Think of it, 
man,” he added, “one of the greatest robberies 
since the Dead Line was established. And if they 
can get away with it, why, no one down here is pro- 
tected any more. Half a billion dollars in jewels 
in Maiden Lane and John Street are easy prey 
for the cracksmen!” 

Staggering though the loss must have been to 
him, he had apparently recovered from the first 
shock of the discovery and had begun the fight to 
get back what had been lost. 

It was, as McLear had intimated, a most amazing 
burglary, too. The door of Schloss’ safe was open 
when Kennedy and I arrived and found the excited 
jeweler nervously pacing the office. Surrounding 
the safe, I noticed a wooden framework constructed 
in such a way as to be a part of the decorative 
scheme of the office. 

Schloss banged the heavy doors shut. 

“There, that’s just how it was — shut as tight as a 
drum. There was absolutely no mark of anyone 
tampering with the combination lock. And yet the 
safe was looted!” 

“How did you discover it?” asked Craig. “I pre- 
sume you carry burglary insurance?” 

Schloss looked up quickly. “That’s what I ex- 
pected as a first question. No, I carried very little 
insurance. You see, I thought the safe, one of those 
new chrome steel affairs, was about impregnable. 
I never lost a moment’s sleep over it; didn’t think 
it possible for anyone to get into it. For, as you 
see, it is completely wired by the Hale Electric 
Protection — that wooden framework about it. No 
one could touch that when it was set without jangling 


THE DEAD LINE 169 

a bell at the central office which would send men 
scurrying here to protect the place.” 

“But they must have got past it,” suggested Ken- 
nedy. 

“Yes — they must have. At least this morning I 
received the regular Hale report. It said that their 
wires registered last night as though some one was 
tampering with the safe. But by the time they got 
around, in less than five minutes, there was no one 
here, nothing seemed to be disturbed. So they set 
it down to induction or electrolysis, or something 
the matter with the wires. I got the report the first 
thing when I arrived here with my assistant, 
Muller.” 

Kennedy was on his knees, going over the safe 
with a fine brush and some powder, looking now 
and then through a small magnifying glass. 

“Not a finger print,” he muttered. “The cracks- 
man must have worn gloves. But how did he get 
in? There isn’t a mark of ‘soup’ having been used 
to blow it up, nor of a ‘can-opener’ to rip it open, 
if that were possible, nor of an electric or any other 
kind of drill.” 

“I’ve read of those fellows who burn their way 
in,” said Schloss. 

“But there is no hole,” objected Kennedy, “not 
a trace of the use of thermit to burn the way in or 
of the oxyacetylene blowpipe to cut a piece out. 
Most extraordinary,” he murmured. 

“You see,” shrugged Schloss, “everyone will say 
it must have been opened by one who knew the com- 
bination. But I am the only one. I have never 
written it down or told anyone, not even Muller. 
You understand what I am up against?” 

“There’s the touch system,” I suggested. “You 


1 7 o THE WAR TERROR 

remember, Craig, the old fellow who used to file 
his finger tips to the quick until they were so sensi- 
tive that he could actually feel when he had turned 
the combination to the right plunger? Might not 
that explain the lack of finger prints also?” I added 
eagerly. 

“Nothing like that in this case, Walter,” objected 
Craig positively. “This fellow wore gloves, all 
right. No, this safe has been opened and looted by 
no ordinarily known method. It’s the most amazing 
case I ever saw in that respect — almost as if we 
had a cracksman in the fourth dimension to whom 
the inside of a closed cube is as accessible as is the 
inside of a plane square to us three dimensional 
creatures. It is almost incomprehensible.” 

I fancied I saw Schloss* face brighten as Ken- 
nedy took this view. So far, evidently, he had run 
across only skepticism. 

“The stones were unset?” resumed Craig. 

“Mostly. Not all.” 

“You would recognize some of them if you saw 
them?” 

“Yes indeed. Some could be changed only by re- 
cutting. Even some of those that were set were of 
odd cut and size — some from a diamond necklace 
which belonged to a ” 

There was something peculiar in both his tone 
and manner as he cut short the words. 

“To whom?” asked Kennedy casually. 

“Oh, once to a well-known woman in society,” he 
said carefully. “It is mine, though, now — at least 
it was mine. I should prefer to mention no names. 
I will give a description of the stones.” 

“Mrs. Lynn Moulton, for instance?” suggested 
Craig quietly. 


THE DEAD LINE 


171 

Schloss jumped almost as if a burglar alarm had 
sounded under his very ears. “How did you know? 
Yes — but it was a secret. I made a large loan on 
it, and the time has expired.” 

“Why did she need money so badly?” asked 
Kennedy. 

“How should I know?” demanded Schloss. 

Here was a deepening mystery, not to be eluci- 
dated by continuing this line of inquiry with Schloss, 
it seemed. 


CHAPTER XVII 


THE PASTE REPLICA 

Carefully Craig was going over the office. Out- 
side of the safe, there had apparently been nothing 
of value. The rest of the office was not even wired, 
and it seemed to have been Schloss’ idea that the 
few thousands of burglary insurance amply pro- 
tected him against such loss. As for the safe, its 
own strength and the careful wiring might well have 
been considered quite sufficient under any hitherto 
to-be-foreseen circumstances. 

A glass door, around the bend of a partition, 
opened from the hallway into the office and had 
apparently been designed with the object of mak- 
ing visible the safe so that anyone passing might 
see whether an intruder was tampering with it. 

Kennedy had examined the door, perhaps in the 
expectation of finding finger prints there, and was 
passing on to other things, when a change in his 
position caused his eye to catch a large oval smudge 
on the glass, which was visible when the light struck 
it at the right angle. Quickly he dusted it over with 
the powder, and brought out the detail more clearly. 
As I examined it, while Craig made preparations 
to cut out the glass to preserve it, it seemed to con- 
tain a number of minute points and several more 
or less broken parallel lines. The edges gradually 
trailed off into an indistinct faintness. 

172 


THE PASTE REPLICA 173 

Business, naturally, was at a standstill, and as we 
were working near the door, we could see that the 
news of Schloss’ strange robbery had leaked out and 
was spreading rapidly. Scores of acquaintances in 
the trade stopped at the door to inquire about the 
rumor. 

To each, it seemed that Morris Muller, the work- 
ing jeweler employed by Schloss, repeated the same 
story. 

“Oh,” he said, “it is a big loss — yes — but big as 
it is, it will not break Mr. Schloss. And,” he would 
add with the tradesman’s idea of humor, “I guess 
he has enough to play a game of poker — eh?” 

“Poker?” asked Kennedy smiling. “Is he much 
of a player?” 

“Yes. Nearly every night with his friends he 
plays.” 

Kennedy made a mental note of it. Evidently 
Schloss trusted Muller implicitly. He seemed like a 
partner, rather than an employee, even though he 
had not been entrusted with the secret combina- 
tion. 

Outside, we ran into city detective Lieutenant 
Winters, the officer who was stationed at the Maiden 
Lane post, guarding that famous section of the Dead 
Line established by the immortal Byrnes at Fulton 
Street, below which no crook was supposed to dare 
even to be seen. Winters had been detailed on the 
case. 

“You have seen the safe in there?” asked Ken- 
nedy, as he was leaving to carry on his investigation 
elsewhere. 

Winters seemed to be quite as skeptical as Schloss 
had intimated the public would be. “Yes,” he re- 
plied, “there’s been an epidemic of robbery with the 


THE WAR TERROR 


174 

dull times — people who want to collect their bur- 
glary insurance, I guess.” 

“But,” objected Kennedy, “Schloss carried so 
little.” 

“Well, there was the Hale Protection. How 
about that?” 

Craig looked up quickly, unruffled by the patroniz- 
ing air of the professional toward the amateur de- 
tective. 

“What is your theory?” he asked. “Do you 
think he robbed himself?” 

Winters shrugged his shoulders. “I’ve been in- 
terested in Schloss for some time,” he said enigmat- 
ically. “He has had some pretty swell customers. 
I’ll keep you wised up, if anything happens,” he 
added in a burst of graciousness, walking off. 

On the way to the subway, we paused again to see 
McLear. 

“Well,” he asked, “what do you think of it, 
now?” 

“All most extraordinary,” ruminated Craig. 
“And the queerest feature of all is that the chief 
loss consists of a diamond necklace that belonged 
once to Mrs. Antoinette Moulton.” 

“Mrs. Lynn Moulton?” repeated McLear. 

“The same,” assured Kennedy. 

McLear appeared somewhat puzzled. “Her hus- 
band is one of our old subscribers,” he pursued. 
“He is a lawyer on Wall Street and quite a gem 
collector. Last night his safe was tampered with, 
but this morning he reports no loss. Not half an 
hour ago he had us on the wire congratulating us 
on scaring off the burglars, if there had been any.” 

“What is your opinion,” I asked. “Is there a 
gang operating?” 


THE PASTE REPLICA 


175 

“My belief is,” he answered, reminiscently of his 
days on the detective force, “that none of the loot 
will be recovered until they start to ‘fence’ it. That 
would be my lay — to look for the fence. Why, think 
of all the big robberies that have been pulled off 
lately. Remember,” he went on, “the spoils of a 
burglary consist generally of precious stones. They 
are not currency. They must be turned into cur- 
rency — or what’s the use of robbery? 

“But merely to offer them for sale at an ordinary 
jeweler’s would be suspicious. Even pawnbrokers 
are on the watch. You see what I am driving at? 
I think there is a man or a group of men whose 
business it is to pay cash for stolen property and 
who have ways of returning gems into the regular 
trade channels. In all these robberies we get a 
glimpse of as dark and mysterious a criminal as has 
ever been recorded. He may be — anybody. About 
his legitimacy, I believe, no question has ever been 
raised. And, I tell you, his arrest is going to create 
a greater sensation than even the remarkable series 
of robberies that he has planned or made possible. 
The question is, to my mind, who is this fence?” 

McLear’s telephone rang and he handed the in- 
strument to Craig. 

“Yes, this is Professor Kennedy,” answered 
Craig. “Oh, too bad you’ve had to try all over 
to get me. I’ve been going from one place to an- 
other gathering clues and have made good progress, 
considering I’ve hardly started. Why — what’s the 
matter? Really?” 

An interval followed, during which McLear left 
to answer a personal call on another wire. 

As Kennedy hung up the receiver, his face wore 
a peculiar look. “It was Mrs. Moulton,” he blurted 


i 7 6 THE WAR TERROR 

out. “She thinks that her husband has found out 
that the necklace is pasted’ 

“How?” I asked. 

“The paste replica is gone from her wall safe in 
the Deluxe.” 

I turned, startled at the information. Even Ken- 
nedy himself was perplexed at the sudden succession 
of events. I had nothing to say. 

Evidently, however, his rule was when in doubt 
play a trump, for, twenty minutes later found us in 
the office of Lynn Moulton, the famous corporation 
lawyer, in Wall Street. 

Moulton was a handsome man of past fifty with 
a youthful face against his iron gray hair and mus- 
tache, well dressed, genial, a man who seemed keenly 
in love with the good things of life. 

“It is rumored,” began Kennedy, “that an at- 
tempt was made on your safe here at the office last 
night.” 

“Yes,” he admitted, taking off his glasses and 
polishing them carefully. “I suppose there is no 
need of concealment, especially as I hear that a 
somewhat similar attempt was made on the safe of 
my friend Herman Schloss in Maiden Lane.” 

“You lost nothing?” 

Moulton put his glasses on and looked Kennedy 
in the face frankly. 

“Nothing, fortunately,” he said, then went on 
slowly. “You see, in my later years, I have been 
something of a collector of precious stones myself. 
I don’t wear them, but I have always taken the 
keenest pleasure in owning them and when I was 
married it gave me a great deal more pleasure to 
have them set in rings, pendants, tiaras, necklaces, 
and other forms for my wife.” 


THE PASTE REPLICA 177 

He had risen, with the air of a busy man who 
had given the subject all the consideration he could 
afford and whose work proceeded almost by sched- 
ule. “This morning I found my safe tampered with, 
but, as I said, fortunately something must have 
scared off the burglars.” 

He bowed us out politely. What was the explana- 
tion, I wondered. It seemed, on the face of things, 
that Antoinette Moulton feared her husband. Did 
he know something else already, and did she know 
he knew? To all appearances he took it very calmly, 
if he did know. Perhaps that was what she feared, 
his very calmness. 

“I must see Mrs. Moulton again,” remarked Ken- 
nedy, as we left. 

The Moultons lived, we found, in one of the 
largest suites of a new apartment hotel, the Deluxe, 
and in spite of the fact that our arrival had been 
announced some minutes before we saw Mrs. Moul- 
ton, it was evident that she had been crying hyster- 
ically over the loss of the paste jewels and what it 
implied. 

“I missed it this morning, after my return from 
seeing you,” she replied in answer to Craig’s in- 
quiry, then added, wide-eyed with alarm, “What 
shall I do? He must have opened the wall safe 
and found the replica. I don’t dare ask him point- 
blank.” 

“Are you sure he did it?” asked Kennedy, more, 
I felt, for its moral effect on her than through any 
doubt in his own mind. 

“Not sure. But then the wall safe shows no 
marks, and the replica is gone.” 

“Might I see your jewel case?” he asked. 

“Surely. I’ll get it. The wall safe is in Lynn’s 


178 THE WAR TERROR 

room. I shall probably have to fuss a long time 
with the combination.” 

In fact she could not have been very familiar 
with it for it took several minutes before she re- 
turned. Meanwhile, Kennedy, who had been drum- 
ming absently on the arms of his chair, suddenly 
rose and walked quietly over to a scrap basket that 
stood beside an escritoire. It had evidently just been 
emptied, for the rooms must have been cleaned 
several hours before. He bent down over it and 
picked up two scraps of paper adhering to the wicker 
work. The rest had evidently been thrown away. 

I bent over to read them. One was: 

— rest Nettie — 

— dying to see — ? 

The other read: 

— cherche to-d 
— love and ma 
— rman. 


What did it mean? Hastily, I could fill in 
“Dearest Nettie,” and “I am dying to see you.” 
Kennedy added, “The Recherche to-day,” that being 
the name of a new apartment uptown, as well as 
“love and many kisses.” But “ — rman” — what did 
that mean? Could it be Herman — Herman Schloss? 

She was returning and we resumed our seats 
quickly. 

Kennedy took the jewel case from her and ex- 
amined it carefully. There was not a mark on it. 

“Mrs. Moulton,” he said slowly, rising and hand- 
ing it back to her, “have you told me all?” 


179 


THE PASTE REPLICA 

“Why — yes,” she answered. 

Kennedy shook his head gravely. 

“I’m afraid not. You must tell me everything.” 

“No — no,” she cried vehemently, “there is noth- 
ing more.” 

We left and outside the Deluxe he paused, looked 
about, caught sight of a taxicab and hailed it. 

“Where?” asked the driver. 

“Across the street,” he said, “ and wait. Put the 
window in back of you down so I can talk. I’ll tell 
you where to go presently. Now, Walter, sit back 
as far as you can. This may seem like an underhand 
thing to do, but we’ve got to get what that woman 
won’t tell us or give up the case.” 

Perhaps half an hour we waited, still puzzling 
over the scraps of paper. Suddenly I felt a nudge 
from Kennedy. Antoinette Moulton was standing 
in the doorway across the street. Evidently she 
preferred not to ride in her own car, for a moment 
later she entered a taxicab. 

“Follow that black cab,” said Kennedy to our 
driver. 

Sure enough, it stopped in front of the Recherche 
Apartments and Mrs. Moulton stepped out and 
almost ran in. 

We waited a moment, then Kennedy followed. 
The elevator that had taken her up had just returned 
to the ground floor. 

“The same floor again,” remarked Kennedy, 
jauntily stepping in and nodding familiarly to the 
elevator boy. 

Then he paused suddenly, looked at his watch, 
fixed his gaze thoughtfully on me an instant, and 
exclaimed. “By George — no. I can’t go up yet. 


i8o THE WAR TERROR 

I clean forgot that engagement at the hotel. One 
moment, son. Let us out. We’ll be back again.” 

Considerably mystified, I followed him to the 
sidewalk. 

“You’re entitled to an explanation,” he laughed 
catching my bewildered look as he opened the cab 
door. “I didn’t want to go up now while she is 
there, but I wanted to get on good terms with that 
boy. We’ll wait until she comes down, then go up.” 

“Where?” I asked. 

“That’s what I am going through all this elab- 
orate preparation to find out. I have no more idea 
than you have.” 

It could not have been more than twenty min- 
utes later when Mrs. Moulton emerged rather hur- 
riedly, and drove away. 

While we had been waiting I had observed a man 
on the other side of the street who seemed unduly 
interested in the Recherche, too, for he had walked 
up and down the block no less than six times. Ken- 
nedy saw him, and as he made no effort to follow 
Mrs M.oulton, Kennedy did not do so either. In 
fact a little quick glance which she had given at our 
cab had raised a fear that she might have discovered 
that she was being followed. 

Kennedy and I paid off our cabman and saun- 
tered into the Recherche in the most debonair man- 
ner we could assume. 

“Now, son, we’ll go up,” he said to the boy who, 
remembering us, and now not at all clear in his mind 
that he might not have seen us before that, whisked 
us to the tenth floor. 

“Let me see,” said Kennedy, “it’s number one 
hundred and — er •” 

“Three,” prompted the boy. 


THE PASTE REPLICA 181 

He pressed the buzzer and a neatly dressed col- 
ored maid responded. 

“I had an appointment here with Mrs. Moulton 
this morning,” remarked Kennedy. 

“She has just gone,” replied the maid, off her 
guard. 

“And was to meet Mr. Schloss here in half an 
hour,” he added quickly. 

It was the maid’s turn to look surprised. 

“I didn’t think he was to be here,” she said. 
“He’s had some ” 

“Trouble at the office,” supplied Kennedy. 
“That’s what it was about. Perhaps he hasn’t been 
able to get away yet. But I had the appointment. 
Ah, I see a telephone in the hall. May I?” 

He had stepped politely in, and by dint of clev- 
erly keeping his finger on the hook in the half light, 
he carried on a one-sided conversation with him- 
self long enough to get a good chance to look 
about. 

There was an air of quiet and refinement about 
the apartment in the Recherche. It was darkened 
to give the little glowing electric bulbs in their silken 
shades a full chance to simulate night. The deep 
velvety carpets were noiseless to the foot, and the 
draperies, the pictures, the bronzes, all bespoke 
taste. 

But the chief objects of interest to Craig were 
the little square green baize-covered tables on one 
of which lay neatly stacked a pile of gilt-edged 
cards and a mahogany box full of ivory chips of red, 
white and blue. 

It was none of the old-time gambling places, like 
Danfield’s, with its steel door which Craig had once 


182 


THE WAR TERROR 


cut through with an oxyacetylene blowpipe in order 
to rescue a young spendthrift from himself. 

Kennedy seemed perfectly well satisfied merely 
with a cursory view of the place, as he hung up 
the receiver and thanked the maid politely for allow- 
ing him to use it. 

“This is up-to-date gambling in cleaned-up New 
York,” he remarked as we waited for the elevator 
to return for us. “And the worst of it all is that it 
gets the women as well as the men. Once they 
are caught in the net, they are the most powerful 
lure to men that the gamblers have yet devised.” 

We rode down in silence, and as we went down 
the steps to the street, I noticed the man whom 
we had seen watching the place, lurking down at the 
lower corner. Kennedy quickened his pace and came 
up behind him. 

“Why, Winters !” exclaimed Craig. “You here?” 

“I might say the same to you,” grinned the detec- 
tive not displeased evidently that our trail had 
crossed his. “I suppose you are looking for Schloss, 
too. He’s up in the Recherche a great deal, play- 
ing poker. I understand he owns an interest in the 
game up there.” 

Kennedy nodded, but said nothing. 

“I just saw one of the cappers for the place go 
out before you went in.” 

“Capper?” repeated Kennedy surprised. “An- 
toinette Moulton a steerer for a gambling joint? 
What can a rich society woman have to do with a 
place like that or a man like Schloss?” 

Winters smiled sardonically. “Society ladies to- 
day often get into scrapes of which their husbands 
know nothing,” he remarked. “You didn’t know 
before that Antoinette Moulton, like many of her 


THE PASTE REPLICA 183 

friends in the smart set, was a gambler — and loser 
— did you?” 

Craig shook his head. He had more of human 
than scientific interest in a case of a woman of her 
caliber gone wrong. 

“But you must have read of the famous Moulton 
diamonds ?” 

“Yes,” said Craig, blankly, as if it were all news 
to him. 

“Schloss has them — or at least had them. The 
jewels she wore at the opera this winter were paste, 
I understand.” 

“Does Moulton play?” he asked. 

“I think so — but not here, naturally. In a way, 
I suppose, it is his fault. They all do it. The 
example of one drives on another.” 

Instantly there flashed over my mind a host of 
possibilities. Perhaps, after all, Winters had been 
right. Schloss had taken this way to make sure of 
the jewels so that she could not redeem them. Sud- 
denly another explanation crowded that out. Had 
Mrs. Moulton robbed the safe herself, or hired 
some one else to do it for her, and had that person 
gone back on her? 

Then a horrid possibility occurred to me. What- 
ever Antoinette Moulton may have been and done, 
some one must have her in his power. What a 
situation for the woman! My sympathy went out 
to her in her supreme struggle. Even if it had been 
a real robbery, Schloss might easily recover from it. 
But for her every event spelled ruin and seemed 
only to be bringing that ruin closer. 

We left Winters, still watching on the trail of 
Schloss, and went on uptown to the laboratory. 


CHAPTER XVIII 


THE BURGLAR’S MICROPHONE 

That night I was sitting, brooding over the case, 
while Craig was studying a photograph which he 
made of the smudge on the glass door down at 
Schloss’. He paused in his scrutiny of the print to 
answer the telephone. 

“Something has happened to Schloss,” he ex- 
claimed seizing his hat and coat. “Winters has been 
watching him. Pie didn’t go to the Recherche. 
Winters wants me to meet him at a place several 
blocks below it. Come on. He wouldn’t say over 
the wire what it was. Hurry.” 

We met Winters in less than ten minutes at the 
address he had given, a bachelor apartment in the 
neighborhood of the Recherche. 

“Schloss kept rooms here,” explained Winters, 
hurrying us quickly upstairs. “I wanted you to see 
before anyone else.” 

As we entered the large and luxuriously furnished 
living room of the jeweler’s suite, a gruesome sight 
greeted us. 

There lay Schloss on the floor, face down, in a 
horribly contorted position. In one hand, clenched 
under him partly, the torn sleeve of a woman’s 
dress was grasped convulsively. The room bore un- 
mistakable traces of a violent struggle, but except 
for the hideous object on the floor was vacant. 

184 


THE BURGLAR’S MICROPHONE 185 

Kennedy bent down over him. Schloss was dead. 

In a corner, by the door, stood a pile of grips, 
stacked up, packed, and undisturbed. 

Winters who had been studying the room while 
we got our bearings picked up a queer-looking revol- 
ver from the floor. As he held it up I could see that 
along the top of the barrel was a long cylinder with 
a ratchet or catch at the butt end. He turned it over 
and over carefully. 

“By George,” he muttered, “it has been fired 
off.” 

Kennedy glanced more minutely at the body. 
There was not a mark on it. I stared about va- 
cantly at the place where Winters had picked the 
thing up. 

“Look,” I cried, my eye catching a little hole in 
the baseboard of the woodwork near it. 

“It must have fallen and exploded on the floor,” 
remarked Kennedy. “Let me see it, Winters.” 

Craig held it at arm’s length and pulled the catch. 
Instead of an explosion, there came a cone of light 
from the top of the gun. As Kennedy moved it 
over the wall, I saw in the center of the circle of 
light a dark spot. 

“A new invention,” Craig explained. “All you 
need to do is to move it so that little dark spot falls 
directly on an object. Pull the trigger — the bullet 
strikes the dark spot. Even a nervous and unskilled 
marksman becomes a good shot in the dark. He 
can even shoot from behind the protection of some- 
thing — and hit accurately.” 

It was too much for me. I could only stand and 
watch Kennedy as he deftly bent over Schloss again 
and placed a piece of chemically prepared paper flat 
on the forehead of the dead man. 

13 


1 86 


THE WAR TERROR 

When he withdrew it, I could see that it bore 
marks of the lines on his head. Without a word, 
Kennedy drew from his pocket a print of the photo- 
graph of the smudge on Schloss’ door. 

“It is possible,” he said, half to himself, “to iden- 
tify a person by means of the arrangement of the 
sweat glands or pores. Poroscopy, Dr. Edmond 
Locard, director of the Police Laboratory at Lyons, 
calls it. The shape, arrangement, number per square 
centimeter, all vary in different individuals. Be- 
sides, here we have added the lines of the fore- 
head.” 

He was studying the two impressions intensely. 
When he looked up from his examination, his face 
wore a peculiar expression. 

“This is not the head which was placed so close 
to the glass of the door of Schloss’ office, peering 
through, on the night of the robbery, in order to 
see before picking the lock whether the office was 
empty and everything ready for the hasty attack 
on the safe.” 

“That disposes of my theory that Schloss robbed 
himself,” remarked Winters reluctantly. “But the 
struggle here, the sleeve of the dress, the pistol — 
could he have been shot?” 

“No, I think not,” considered Kennedy. “It 
looks to me more like a case of apoplexy.”' 

“What shall we do?” asked Winters. “Far from 
clearing anything up, this complicates it.” 

“Where’s Muller?” asked Kennedy. “Does he 
know? Perhaps he can shed some light on it.” 

The clang of an ambulance bell outside told that 
the aid summoned by Winters had arrived. 

We left the body in charge of the surgeon and 


THE BURGLAR’S MICROPHONE 187 

of a policeman who arrived about the same time, 
and followed Winters. 

Muller lived in a -cheap boarding house in a shab- 
bily respectable street downtown, and without an- 
nouncing ourselves we climbed the stairs to his 
room. He looked up surprised but not disconcerted 
as we entered. 

“What’s the matter?” he asked. 

“Muller,” shot out Winters, “we have just found 
Mr. Schloss dead!” 

“D-dead!” he stammered. 

The man seemed speechless with horror. 

“Yes, and with his grips packed as if to run 
away.” 

Muller looked dazedly from one of us to the 
other, but shut up like a clam. 

“I think you had better come along with us as a 
material witness,” burst out Winters roughly. 

Kennedy said nothing, leaving that sort of third 
degree work to the detective. But he was not idle, 
as Winters tried to extract more than the mono- 
syllables, “I don’t know,” in answer to every inquiry 
of Muller about his employer’s life and business. 

A low exclamation from Craig attracted my at- 
tention from Winters. In a corner he had discov- 
ered a small box and had opened it. Inside was a 
dry battery and a most peculiar instrument, some- 
thing like a little flat telephone transmitter yet at- 
tached by wires to earpieces that fitted over the head 
after the manner of those of a wireless detector. 

“What’s this?” asked Kennedy, dangling it before 
Muller. 

He looked at it phlegmatically. “A deaf instru- 
ment I have been working on,” replied the jeweler. 
“My hearing is getting poor.” 


1 8 8 THE WAR TERROR 

Kennedy looked hastily from the instrument to 
the man. 

“I think I’ll take it along with us,” he said 
quietly. 

Winters, true to his instincts, had been search- 
ing Muller in the meantime. Besides the various 
assortment that a man carries in his pockets usually, 
including pens, pencils, notebooks, a watch, a hand- 
kerchief, a bunch of keys, one of which was large 
enough to open a castle, there was a bunch of blank 
and unissued pawntickets bearing the name, “Stein’s 
One Per Cent, a Month Loans,” and an address on 
the Bowery. 

Was Muller the “fence” we were seeking, or 
only a tool for the “fence” higher up? Who was 
this Stein? 

What it all meant I could only guess. It was a 
far cry from the wealth of Diamond Lane to a 
dingy Bowery pawnshop, even though pawnbroking 
at one per cent, a month — and more, on the side — 
pays. I knew, too, that diamonds are hoarded on 
the East Side as nowhere else in the world, outside 
of India. It was no uncommon thing, I had heard, 
for a pawnbroker whose shop seemed dirty and 
greasy to the casual visitor to have stored away in 
his vault gems running into the hundreds of thou- 
sands of dollars. 

“Mrs. Moulton must know of this,” remarked 
Kennedy. “Winters, you and Jameson bring Mul- 
ler along. I am going up to the Deluxe.” 

I must say that I was surprised at finding Mrs. 
Moulton there. Outside the suite Winters and I 
waited with the unresisting Muller, while Kenqedy 
entered. But through the door which he left ajar I 
could hear what passed. 


THE BURGLAR’S MICROPHONE 189 

“Mrs. Moulton,” he began, “something terrible 
has happened ” 

He broke off, and I gathered that her pale face 
and agitated manner told him that she knew 
already. 

“Where is Mr. Moulton?” he went on, changing 
his question. 

“Mr. Moulton is at his office,” she answered 
tremulously. “He telephoned while I was out that 
he had to work to-night. Oh, Mr. Kennedy — he 
knows — he knows. I know it. He has avoided me 
ever since I missed the replica from ” 

“Sh !” cautioned Craig. He had risen and gone 
to the door. 

“Winters,” he whispered, “I want you to go down 
to Lynn Moulton’s office. Meanwhile Jameson can 
take care of Muller. I am going over to that place 
of Stein’s presently. Bring Moulton up there. You 
will wait here, Walter, for the present,” he nodded. 

He returned to the room where I could hear her 
crying softly. 

“Now, Mrs. Moulton,” he said gently, “I’m 
afraid I must trouble you to go with me. I am 
going over to a pawnbroker’s on the Bowery.” 

“The Bowery?” she repeated, with a genuinely 
surprised shudder. “Oh, no, Mr. Kennedy. Don’t 
ask me to go anywhere to-night. I am — I am in no 
condition to go anywhere — to do anything — I ” 

“But you must,” said Kennedy in a low voice. 

“I can’t. Oh — have mercy on me. I am terribly 
upset. You ” 

“It is your duty to go, Mrs. Moulton,” he re- 
peated. 

“I don’t understand.” she murmured. “A pawn- 
broker’s?” 


190 


THE WAR TERROR 


“Come,” urged Kennedy, not harshly but firmly, 
then, as she held back, added, playing a trump card, 
“We must work quickly. In his hands we found 
the fragments of a torn dress. When the 
police ” 

She uttered a shriek. A glance had told her, if 
she had deceived herself before, that Kennedy knew 
her secret. 

Antoinette Moulton was standing before him, 
talking rapidly. 

“Some one has told Lynn. I know it. There is 
nothing now that I can conceal. If you had come 
half an hour later you would not have found me. 
He had written to Mr. Schloss, threatening him 
that if he did not leave the country he would shoot 
him at sight. Mr. Schloss showed me the letter. 

“It had come to this. I must either elope with 
Schloss, or lose his aid. The thought of either was 
unendurable. I hated him — yet was dependent on 
him. 

^To-night I met him, in his empty apartment, 
alone. I knew that he had what was left of his 
money with him, that everything was packed up. 
I went prepared. I would not elope. My plan was 
no less than to make him pay the balance on the 
necklace that he had lost — or to murder him. 

“I carried a new pistol in my muff, one which 
Lynn had just bought. I don’t know how I did it. 
I was desperate. 

“He told me he loved me, that Lynn did not, 
never had — that Lynn had married me only to show 
off his wealth and diamonds, to give him a social 
position — that I was merely a — a piece of property 
* — a dummy. 


THE BURGLAR’S MICROPHONE 19 1 

“He tried to kiss me. It was revolting. I strug- 
gled away from him. 

“And in the struggle, the revolver fell from my 
muff and exploded on the floor. 

“At once he was aflame with suspicion. 

“ ‘So — it’s murder you want!’ he shouted. ‘Well, 
murder it shall be !’ 

“I saw death in his eye as he seized my arm. I 
was defenseless now. The old passion came over 
him. Before he killed — he — would have his way 
with me. 

“I screamed. With a wild effort I twisted away 
from him. 

“He raised his hand to strike me, I saw his eyes, 
glassy. Then he sank back — fell to the floor — dead 
of apoplexy — dead of his furious emotions. 

“I fled. 

“And now you have found me.” 

She had turned, hastily, to leave the room. Ken- 
nedy blocked the door. 

“Mrs. Moulton,” he said firmly, “listen to me. 
What was the first question you asked me? ‘Can I 
trust you?’ And I told you you could. This is no 
time for — for suicide.” He shot the word out 
bluntly. “All may not be lost. I have sent for your 
husband. Muller is outside.” 

“Muller?” she cried. “He made the replica.” 

“Very well. I am going to clear this thing up. 
Come. You must.” 

It was all confused to me, the dash in a car to 
the little pawnbroker’s on the first floor of a five- 
story tenement, the quick entry into the place by one 
of Muller’s keys. 

Over the safe in back was a framework like that 
which had covered Schloss’ safe. Kennedy tore it 


i 9 2 the war terror 

away, regardless of the alarm which it must have 
sounded. In a moment he was down before it on 
his knees. 

“This is how Schloss’ safe was opened so quickly,” 
he muttered, working feverishly. “Here is some of 
their own medicine.” 

He had placed the peculiar telephone-like trans- 
mitter close to the combination lock and was turn- 
ing the combination rapidly. 

Suddenly he rose, gave the bolts a twist, and the 
ponderous doors swung open. 

“What is it?” I asked eagerly. 

“A burglar’s microphone,” he answered, hastily 
looking over the contents of the safe. “The micro- 
phone is now used by burglars for picking combina- 
tion locks. When you turn the lock, a slight sound 
is made when the proper number comes opposite the 
working point. It can be heard sometimes by a sen- 
sitive ear, although it is imperceptible to most per- 
sons. But by using a microphone it is an easy mat- 
ter to hear the sounds which allow of opening the 
lock.” 

He had taken a yellow chamois bag out of the 
safe and opened it. 

Inside sparkled the famous Moulton diamonds. 
He held them up — in all their wicked brilliancy. 
No one spoke. 

Then he took another yellow bag, more dirty and 
worn than the first. As he opened it, Mrs. Moulton 
could restrain herself no longer. 

“The replica!” she cried. “The replica!” 

Without a word, Craig handed the real necklace 
to her. Then he slipped the paste jewels into the 
newer of the bags and restored both it and the empty 


THE BURGLAR’S MICROPHONE 193 

one to their places, banged shut the door of the safe, 
and replaced the wooden screen. 

“Quick!” he said to her, “you have still a minute 
to get away. Hurry — anywhere — away — only 
away!” 

The look of gratitude that came over her face, 
as she understood the full meaning of it was such 
as I had never seen before. 

“Quick!” he repeated. 

It was too late. 

“For God’s sake, Kennedy,” shouted a voice at 
the street door, “what are you doing here?” 

It was McLear himself. He had come with the 
Hale patrol, on his mettle now to take care of the 
epidemic of robberies. 

Before Craig could reply a cab drew up with a 
rush at the curb and two men, half fighting, half 
cursing, catapulted themselves into the shop. 

They were Winters and Moulton. 

Without a word, taking advantage of the first 
shock of surprise, Kennedy had clapped a piece of 
chemical paper on the foreheads of Mrs. Moulton, 
then of Moulton, and on Muller’s. Oblivious to the 
rest of us, he studied the impressions in the full 
light of the counter. 

Moulton was facing his wife with a scornful curl 
of the lip. 

“I’ve been told of the paste replica — and I wrote 
Schloss that I’d shoot him down like the dog he is, 
you — you traitress,” he hissed. 

She drew herself up scornfully. 

“And I have been told why you married me — 
to show off your wicked jewels and help you in 
your ” 

“You lie !” he cried fiercely. “Muller — some one 


i 9 4 THE WAR TERROR 

— open this safe — whosever it is. If what I have 
been told is true, there is in it one new bag contain- 
ing the necklace. It was stolen from Schloss to 
whom you sold my jewels. The other old bag, 
stolen from me, contains the paste replica you had 
made to deceive me.” 

It was all so confused that I do not know how 
it happened. I think it was Muller who opened 
the safe. 

“There is the new yellow bag,” cried Moulton, 
“from Schloss’ own safe. Open it.” 

McLear had taken it. He did so. There spar- 
kled not the real gems, but the replica. 

“The devil!” Moulton exclaimed, breaking from 
Winters and seizing the old bag. 

He tore it open and — it was empty. 

“One moment,” interrupted Kennedy, looking up 
quietly from the counter. “Seal that safe again, 
McLear. In it are the Schloss jewels and the prod- 
ucts of half a dozen other robberies which the dupe 
Muller — or Stein, as you please — pulled off, some 
as a blind to conceal the real criminal. You may 
have shown him how to leave no finger prints, but 
you yourself have left what is just as good — your 
own forehead print. McLear — you were right. 
There’s your criminal — Lynn Moulton, professional 
fence, the brains of the thing.” 


CHAPTER XIX 


THE GERM LETTER 

Lynn Moulton made no fight and Kennedy did 
not pursue the case, for, with the rescue of An- 
toinette Moulton, his interest ceased. 

Blackmail takes various forms, and the Moulton 
affair was only one phase of it. It was not long 
before we had to meet a much stranger attempt. 

“Read the letter, Professor Kennedy. Then I 
will tell you the sequel.” 

Mrs. Hunter Blake lay back in the cushions of 
her invalid chair in the sun parlor of the great 
Blake mansion on Riverside Drive, facing the Hud- 
son with its continuous reel of maritime life framed 
against the green-hilled background of the Jersey 
shore. 

Her nurse, Miss Dora Sears, gently smoothed out 
the pillows and adjusted them so that the invalid 
could more easily watch us. Mrs. Blake, wealthy, 
known as a philanthropist, was not an old woman, 
but had been for years a great sufferer from rheu- 
matism. 

I watched Miss Sears eagerly. Full-bosomed, 
fine of face and figure, she was something more than 
a nurse; she was a companion. She had bright, 
sparkling 'black eyes and an expression about her 
well-cut mouth which made one want to laugh with 
her. It seemed to say that the world was a huge 
195 


i 9 6 THE WAR TERROR 

joke and she invited you to enjoy the joke with Her. 

Kennedy took the letter which Miss Sears prof- 
fered him, and as he did so I could not help noticing 
her full, plump forearm on which gleamed a hand- 
some plain gold bracelet. He spread the letter out 
on a dainty wicker table in such a way that we both 
could see it. 

We had been summoned over the telephone to the 
Blake mansion by Reginald Blake, Mrs. Blake’s 
eldest son. Reginald had been very reticent over 
the reason, but had seemed very anxious and insist- 
ent that Kennedy should come immediately. 

Craig read quickly and I followed him, fascinated 
by the letter from its very opening paragraph. 

“Dear Madam,” it began. “Having received my 
diploma as doctor of medicine and bacteriology at 
Heidelberg in 1909, I came to the United States to 
study a most serious disease which is prevalent in 
several of the western mountain states.” 

So far, I reflected, it looked like an ordinary 
appeal for aid. The next words, however, were 
queer: “I have four hundred persons of wealth on 
my list. Your name was ” 

Kennedy turned the page. On the next leaf of 
the letter sheet was pasted a strip of gelatine. The 
first page had adhered slightly to the gelatine. 

“Chosen by fate,” went on the sentence ominously. 

“By opening this letter,” I read, “you have lib- 
erated millions of the virulent bacteria of this dis- 
ease. Without a doubt you are infected by this 
time, for no human body is impervious to them, 
and up to the present only one in one hundred has 
fully recovered after going through all its stages.” 

I gasped. The gelatine had evidently been ar- 
ranged so that when the two sheets were pulled 


THE GERM LETTER 197 

apart, the germs would be thrown into the air about 
the person opening the letter. It was a very in- 
genious device. 

The letter continued, “I am happy to say, how- 
ever, that I have a prophylactic which will destroy 
any number of these germs if used up to the ninth 
day. It is necessary only that you should place five 
thousand dollars in an envelope and leave it for 
me to be called for at the desk of the Prince Henry 
Hotel. When the messenger delivers the money to 
me, the prophylactic will be sent immediately. 

“First of all, take a match and burn this letter to 
avoid spreading the disease. Then change your 
clothes and burn the old ones. Enclosed you will 
find in a germ-proof envelope an exact copy of this 
letter. The room should then be thoroughly fumi- 
gated. Do not come into close contact with any- 
one near and dear to you until you have used the 
prophylactic. Tell no one. In case you do, the 
prophylactic will not be sent under any circum- 
stances. Very truly yours, Dr. Hans Hopf.” 

“Blackmail!” exclaimed Kennedy, looking intently 
again at the gelatine on the second page, as I in- 
voluntarily backed away and held my breath. 

“Yes, I know,” responded Mrs. Blake anxiously, 
“but is it true?” 

There could be no doubt from the tone of her 
voice that she more than half believed that it was 
true. 

“I cannot say — yet,” replied Craig, still cautiously 
scanning the apparently innocent piece of gelatine 
on the original letter which Mrs. Blake had not de- 
stroyed. “I shall have to keep it and examine it.” 

On the gelatine I could see a dark mass which 
evidently was supposed to contain the germs. 


198 


THE WAR TERROR 


“I opened the letter here in this room,” she went 
on. “At first I thought nothing of it. But this 
morning, when Buster, my prize Pekinese, who had 
been with me, sitting on my lap at the time and 
closer to the letter even than I was, when Buster 
was taken suddenly ill, I — well, I began to worry.” 

She finished with a little nervous laugh, as peo- 
ple will to hide their real feelings. 

“I should like to see the dog,” remarked Kennedy 
simply. 

“Miss Sears,” asked her mistress, “will you get 
Buster, please?” 

The nurse left the room. No longer was there 
the laughing look on her face. This was serious 
business. 

A few minutes later she reappeared, carrying 
gingerly a small dog basket. Mrs. Blake lifted the 
lid. Inside was a beautiful little “Peke,” and it was 
easy to see that Buster was indeed ill. 

“Who is your doctor?” asked Craig, considering. 

“Dr. Rae Wilson, a very well-known woman phy- 
sician.” 

Kennedy nodded recognition of the name. 
“What does she say?” he asked, observing the dog 
narrowly. 

“We haven’t told anyone, outside, of it yet,” re- 
plied Mrs. Blake. “In fact until Buster fell sick, 
I thought it was a hoax.” 

“You haven’t told anyone?” 

“Only Reginald and my daughter Betty. Betty 
is frantic — not with fear for herself, but with fear 
for me. No one can reassure her. In fact it was 
as much for her sake as anyone’s that I sent for 
you. Reginald has tried to trace the thing down 
himself, but has not succeeded.” 


THE GERM LETTER 


199 

She paused. The door opened and Reginald 
Blake entered. He was a young fellow, self con- 
fident and no doubt very efficient at the new dances, 
though scarcely fitted to rub elbows with a cold 
world which, outside of his own immediate circle, 
knew not the name of Blake. He stood for a 
moment regarding us through the smoke of his 
cigarette. 

“Tell me just what you have done,” asked Ken- 
nedy of him as his mother introduced him, although 
he had done the talking for her over the tele- 
phone. 

“Done?” he drawled. “Why, as soon as mother 
told me of the letter, I left an envelope up at the 
Prince Henry, as it directed.” 

“With the money?” put in Craig quickly. 

“Oh, no — just as a decoy.” 

“Yes. What happened?” 

“Well, I waited around a long time. It was far 
along in the day when a woman appeared at the 
desk. I had instructed the clerk to be on the watch 
for anyone who asked for mail addressed to a Dr. 
Hopf. The clerk slammed the register. That was 
the signal. I moved up closer.” 

“What did she look like?” asked Kennedy 
keenly. 

“I couldn’t see her face. But she was beautifully 
dressed, with a long light flowing linen duster, a veil 
that hid her features and on her hands and arms a 
Jong pair of motoring doeskin gloves. By George, 
she was a winner — in general looks, though. Well, 
something about the clerk, I suppose, must have 
aroused her suspicions. For, a moment later, she 
was gone in the crowd. Evidently she had thought 
of the danger and had picked out a time when the 


200 THE WAR TERROR 

lobby would be full and everybody busy. But she 
did not leave by the front entrance through which 
she entered. I concluded that she must have left by 
one of the side street carriage doors.” 

“And she got away?” 

“Yes. I found that she asked one of the boys at 
the door to crank up a car standing at the curb. 
She slid into the seat, and was off in a minute.” 

Kennedy said nothing. But I knew that he was 
making a mighty effort to restrain comment on the 
bungling amateur detective work of the son of our 
client. 

Reginald saw the look on his face. “Still,” he 
hastened, “I got the number of the car. It was 
200859 New York.” 

“You have looked it up?” queried Kennedy 
quickly. 

“I didn’t need to do it. A few minutes later 
Dr. Rae Wilson herself came out — storming like 
mad. Her car had been stolen at the very door of 
the hotel by this woman with the innocent aid of 
the hotel employees.” 

Kennedy was evidently keenly interested. The 
mention of the stolen car had apparently at once 
suggested an idea to him. 

“Mrs. Blake,” he said, as he rose to go, “I shall 
take this letter with me. Will you see that Buster 
is sent up to my laboratory immediately?” 

She nodded. It was evident that Buster was a 
great pet with her and that it was with difficulty 
she kept from smoothing his silky coat. 

“You~you won’t hurt Buster?” she pleaded. 

“No. Trust me. More than that, if there is 
any possible way of untangling this mystery, I shall 
do it.” 


201 


THE GERM LETTER 

Mrs. Blake looked rather than spoke her thanks. 
As we went downstairs, accompanied by Miss Sears, 
we could see in the music room a very interesting 
couple, chatting earnestly over the piano. 

Betty Blake, a slip of a girl in her first season, 
was dividing her attention between her visitor and 
the door by which we were passing. 

She rose as she heard us, leaving the young man 
standing alone at the piano. He was of an age 
perhaps a year or two older than Reginald Blake. 
It was evident that, whatever Miss Betty might 
think, he had eyes for no one else but the pretty 
debutante. He even seemed to be regarding Ken- 
nedy sullenly, as if he were a possible rival. 

“You — you don’t think it is serious?” whispered 
Betty in an undertone, scarcely waiting to be intro- 
duced. She had evidently known of our visit, but 
had been unable to get away to be present upstairs. 

“Really, Miss Blake,” reassured Kennedy, “I 
can’t say. All I can do is to repeat what I have 
already said to your mother. Keep up a good heart 
and trust me to work it out.” 

“Thank you,” she murmured, and then, impul- 
sively extending her small hand to Craig, she added, 
“Mr. Kennedy, if there is anything I can do to 
help you, I beg that you will call on me.” 

“I shall not forget,” he answered, relinquishing 
the hand reluctantly. Then, as she thanked him, 
and turned again to her guest, he added in a low 
tone to me, “A remarkable girl, Walter, a girl that 
can be depended on.” 

We followed Miss Sears down the hall. 

“Who was that young man in the music room?” 
asked Kennedy, when we were out of earshot 

14 


202 


THE WAR TERROR 


“Duncan Baldwin,” she answered. “A friend and 
bosom companion of Reginald.” 

“He seems to think more of Betty than of her 
brother,” Craig remarked dryly. 

Miss Sears smiled. “Sometimes, we think they 
are secretly engaged,” she returned. We had almost 
reached the door. “By the way,” she asked anx- 
iously, “do you think there are any precautions that 
I should take for Mrs. Blake — and the rest?” 

“Hardly,” answered Kennedy, after a moment’s 
consideration, “as long as you have taken none in 
particular already. Still, I suppose it will do no 
harm to be as antiseptic as possible.” 

“I shall try,” she promised, her face showing that 
she considered the affair now in a much more serious 
light than she had before our visit. 

“And keep me informed of anything that turns 
up,” added Kennedy handing her a card with the 
telephone number of the laboratory. 

As we left the Blake mansion, Kennedy remarked, 
“We must trace that car somehow — at least we must 
get someone working on that.” 

Half an hour later we were in a towering office 
building on Liberty Street, the home of various 
kinds of insurance. Kennedy stopped before a door 
which bore the name, “Douglas Garwood: Insurance 
Adjuster.” 

Briefly, Craig told the story of the stolen car, 
omitting the account of the dastardly method taken 
to blackmail Mrs. Blake. As he proceeded a light 
seemed to break on the face of Garwood, a heavy- 
set man, whose very gaze was inquisitorial. 

“Yes, the theft has been reported to us already 
by Dr. Wilson herself,” he interrupted. “The car 
was insured in a company I represent.” 


THE GERM LETTER 203 

“I had hoped so,” remarked Kennedy. “Do you 
know the woman?” he added, watching the insur- 
ance adjuster who had been listening intently as 
he told about the fair motor car thief. 

“Know her?” repeated Garwood emphatically. 
“Why, man, we have been so close to that woman 
that I feel almost intimate with her. The descrip- 
tions are those of a lady, well-dressed, and with a 
voice and manner that would carry her through any 
of the fashionable hotels, perhaps into society 
itself.” 

“One of a gang of blackmailers, then,” I hazarded. 

Garwood shrugged his shoulders. “Perhaps,” he 
acquiesced. “It is automobile thieving that inter- 
ests me, though. “Why, he went on, rising excit- 
edly, “the gangs of these thieves are getting away 
with half a million dollars’ worth of high-priced 
cars every year. The police seem to be powerless 
to stop it. We appeal to them, but with no result. 
So, now we have taken things into our own hands.” 

“What are you doing in this case?” asked Ken- 
nedy. 

“What the insurance companies have to do to 
recover stolen automobiles,” Garwood replied. 
“For, with all deference to your friend, Deputy 
O’Connor, it is the insurance companies rather than 
the police who get stolen cars back.” 

He had pulled out a postal card from a pigeon 
hole in his desk, selecting it from several apparently 
similar. We read: 

$250.00 REWARD 

We will pay $100.00 for car, $150.00 additional 
for information which will convict the thief. When 


204 THE WAR TERROR 

last seen, driven by a woman, name not known, who 
is described as dark-haired, well-dressed, slight, ap- 
parently thirty years old. The car is a Dixon, 1912, 
seven-passenger, touring, No. 193,222, license No. 
200,859, New York; dark red body, mohair top, 
brass lamps, has no wind shield; rear axle brake 
band device has extra nut on turnbuckle not painted. 
Car last seen near Prince Henry Hotel, New York 
City, Friday, the 10th. 

Communicate by telegraph or telephone, after 
notifying nearest police department, with Douglas 
Garwood, New York City. 

“The secret of it is,” explained Garwood, as we 
finished reading, “that there are innumerable people 
who keep their eyes open and like to earn money 
easily. Thus we have several hundreds of amateur 
and enthusiastic detectives watching all over the city 
and country for any car that looks suspicious.” 

Kennedy thanked him for his courtesy, and we 
rose to go. “I shall be glad to keep you informed 
of anything that turns up,” he promised. 


CHAPTER XX 


THE ARTIFICIAL KIDNEY 

In the laboratory, Kennedy quietly set to work. 
He began by tearing from the germ letter the piece 
of gelatine and first examining it with a pocket lens. 
Then, with a sterile platinum wire, he picked out 
several minute sections of the black spot on the 
gelatine and placed them in agar, blood serum, and 
other media on which they would be likely to grow. 

“I shall have to wait until to-morrow to examine 
them properly,” he remarked. “There are colonies 
of something there, all right, but I must have them 
more fully developed.” 

A hurried telephone call late in the day from 
Miss Sears told us that Mrs. Blake herself had 
begun to complain, and that Dr. Wilson had been 
summoned but had been unable to give an opinion 
on the nature of the malady. 

Kennedy quickly decided on making a visit to the 
doctor, who lived not far downtown from the lab- 
oratory. 

Dr. Rae Wilson proved to be a nervous little 
woman, inclined, I felt, to be dictatorial. I thought 
that secretly she felt a little piqued at our having 
been taken into the Blakes’ confidence before her- 
self, and Kennedy made every effort to smooth that 
aspect over tactfully. 

ZQ$ 


20 6 THE WAR TERROR 

“Have you any idea what it can be?” he asked 
finally. 

She shook her head noncommitally. “I have 
taken blood smears,” she answered, “but so far 
haven’t been able to discover anything. I shall have 
to have her under observation for a day or two 
before I can answer that. Still, as Mrs. Blake is so 
ill, I have ordered another trained nurse to relieve 
Miss Sears of the added work, a very efficient nurse, 
a Miss Rogers.” 

Kennedy had risen to go. “You have had no 
word about your car?” he asked casually. 

“None yet. I’m not worrying. It was insured.” 

“Who is this arch criminal, Dr. Hopf?” I mused 
as we retraced our steps to the laboratory. “Is 
Mrs. Blake stricken now by the same trouble that 
seems to have affected Buster?” 

“Only my examination will show,” he said. “I 
shall let nothing interfere with that now. It must 
be the starting point for any work that I may do 
in the case.” 

We arrived at Kennedy’s workshop of scientific 
crime and he immediately plunged into work. Look- 
ing up he caught sight of me standing helplessly 
idle. 

“Walter,” he remarked thoughtfully adjusting a 
microscope, “suppose you run down and see Gar- 
wood. Perhaps he has something to report. And, 
by the way, while you are out, make inquiries about 
the Blakes, young Baldwin, Miss Sears and this 
Dr. Wilson. I have heard of her before, at least 
by name. Perhaps you may find something interest- 
ing.” 

Glad to have a chance to seem to be doing some- 
thing whether it amounted to anything or not, I 


THE ARTIFICIAL KIDNEY 207 

dropped in to see Garwood. So far he had nothing 
to report except the usual number of false alarms. 
From his office I went up to the Star where fortu- 
nately I found one of the reporters who wrote 
society notes. 

The Blakes, I found, as we already knew, to be. 
well known and moving in the highest social circles. 
As far as known they had no particular enemies, 
other than those common to all people of great 
wealth. Dr. Wilson had a large practice, built up 
in recent years, and was one of the best known 
society physicians for women. Miss Sears was un- 
known, as far as I could determine. As for Duncan 
Baldwin, I found that he had become acquainted 
with Reginald Blake in college, that he came of no 
particular family and seemed to have no great 
means, although he was very popular in the best 
circles. In fact he had had, thanks to his friend, a 
rather meteoric rise in society, though it was re- 
ported that he was somewhat involved in debt as a 
result. 

I returned to the laboratory to find that Craig 
had taken out of a cabinet a peculiar looking ar- 
rangement. It consisted of thirty-two tubes, each 
about sixteen inches long, with S-turns, like a minute 
radiator. It was altogether not over a cubic foot 
in size, and enclosed in a glass cylinder. There were 
in it, perhaps, fifty feet of tubes, a perfectly-closed 
tubular system which I noticed Kennedy was keep- 
ing absolutely sterile in a germicidal solution of 
some kind. 

Inside the tubes and surrounding them was a 
saline solution which was kept at a uniform tem- 
perature by a special heating apparatus. 

Kennedy had placed the apparatus on the labora* 


208 THE WAR TERROR 

tory table and then gently took the little dog from 
his basket and laid him beside it. A few minutes 
later the poor little suffering Buster was mercifully 
under the influence of an anesthetic. 

Quickly Craig worked. First he attached the: 
end of one of the tubes by means of a little cannula 
to the carotid artery of the dog. Then the other 
was attached to the jugular vein. 

As he released the clamp which held the artery, 
the little dog’s feverishly beating heart spurted the 
arterial blood from the carotid into the tubes hold- 
ing the normal salt solution and that pressure, in 
turn, pumped the salt solution which filled the tubes 
into the jugular vein, thus replacing the arterial 
blood that had poured into the tubes from the other 
end and maintaining the normal hydrostatic condi- 
tions in the body circulation. The dog was being 
kept alive, although perhaps a third of his blood 
was out of his body. 

“You see,” he said at length, after we had watched 
the process a few minutes, “what I have here is in 
reality an artificial kidney. It is a system that has 
been devised by several doctors at Johns Hopkins. 

“If there is any toxin in the blood of this dog, 
the kidneys are naturally endeavoring to eliminate 
it. Perhaps it is being eliminated too slowly. In 
that case this arrangement which I have here will 
aid them. We call it vividiffusion and it depends 
for its action on the physical principle of osmosis, 
the passage of substances of a certain kind through 
a porous membrane, such as these tubes of celloidin. 

“Thus any substance, any poison that is dialyzable 
is diffused into the surrounding salt solution and the 
blood is passed back into the body, with no air 
in it, no infection, and without alteration. Clotting 


THE ARTIFICIAL KIDNEY 209 

is prevented by the injection of a harmless substance 
derived from leeches, known as hirudin. I prevent 
the loss of anything in the blood which I want 
retained by placing in the salt solution around the 
tubes an amount of that substance equal to that held 
in solution by the blood. Of course that does not 
apply to the colloidal substances in the blood which 
would not pass by osmosis under any circumstances. 
But by such adjustments I can remove and study 
any desired substance in the blood, provided it is 
capable of diffusion. In fact this little apparatus 
has been found in practice to compare favorably 
with the kidneys themselves in removing even a 
lethal dose of poison.” 

I watched in amazement. He was actually clean- 
ing the blood of the dog and putting it back again, 
purified, into the little body. Far from being 
cruel, as perhaps it might seem, it was in reality 
probably the only method by which the animal could 
be saved, and at the same time it was giving us a 
clue as to some elusive, subtle substance used in the 
case. 

“Indeed,” Kennedy went on reflectively, “this 
process can be kept up for several hours without 
injury to the dog, though I do not think that will 
be necessary to relieve the unwonted strain that has 
been put upon his natural organs. Finally, at the 
close of the operation, serious loss of blood is over- 
come by driving back the greater part of it into 
his body, closing up the artery and vein, and taking 
good care of the animal so that he will make a quick 
recovery.” 

For a long time I watched the fascinating process 
of seeing the life blood coursing through the porous 
tubes in the salt solution, while Kennedy gave his 


210 


THE WAR TERROR 


undivided attention to the success of the delicate 
experiment. It was late when I left him, still at 
work over Buster, and went up to our apartment to 
turn in, convinced that nothing more would happen 
that night. 

The next morning, with characteristic energy, 
Craig was at work early, examining the cultures he 
had made from the black spots on the gelatine. 

By the look of perplexity on his face, I knew that 
he had discovered something that instead of clearing 
the mystery up, further deepened it. 

“What do you find?” I asked anxiously. 

“Walter,” he exclaimed, laying aside the last of 
the slides which he had been staining and looking at 
intently through the microscope, “that stuff on the 
gelatine is entirely harmless. There was nothing 
in it except common mold.” 

For the moment I did not comprehend. 
“Mold?” I repeated. 

“Yes,” he replied, “just common, ordinary mold 
such as grows on the top of a jar of fruit or pre- 
serves when it is exposed to the air.” 

I stifled an exclamation of incredulity. It seemed 
impossible that the deadly germ note should be 
harmless, in view of the events that had followed 
its receipt. 

Just then the laboratory door was flung open and 
Reginald Blake, pale and excited, entered. He had 
every mark of having been up all night. 

“What’s the matter?” asked Craig. 

“It’s about my mother,” he blurted out. “She 
seems to be getting worse all the time. Miss Sears 
is alarmed, and Betty is almost ill herself with 
worry. Dr. Wilson doesn’t seem to know what it is 


THE ARTIFICIAL KIDNEY 1 21 1 

> 

that affects her, and neither does the new nurse. 
Can you do something?” 

There was a tone of appeal in his voice that was 
not like the self-sufficient Reginald of the day before. 

“Does there seem to be any immediate danger?” 
asked Kennedy. 

“Perhaps not — I can’t say,” he urged. “But she 
is gradually getting worse instead of better.” 

Kennedy thought a moment. “Has anything else 
happened?” he asked slowly. 

“N-no. That’s enough, isn’t it?” 

“Indeed it is,” replied Craig, trying to be reas- 
suring. Then, recollecting Betty, he added, “Regi- 
nald, go back and tell your sister for me that she 
must positively make the greatest effort of her life 
to control herself. Tell her that her mother needs 
her — needs her well and brave. T shall be up at 
the house immediately. Do the best you can. I 
depend on you.” 

Kennedy’s words seemed to have a bracing effect 
on Reginald and a few moments later he left, much 
calmer. 

“I hope I have given him something to do which 
will keep him from mussing things up again,” re- 
marked Kennedy, mindful of Reginald’s former ex- 
cursion into detective work. 

Meanwhile Craig plunged furiously into his study 
of the substances he had isolated from the saline 
solution in which he had “washed” the blood of the 
little Pekinese. 

“There’s no use doing anything in the dark,” he 
explained. “Until we know what it is we are fight- 
ing we can’t very well fight.” 

For the moment I was overwhelmed by the im- 
pending tragedy that seemed to be hanging over 


212 


THE WAR TERROR 

Mrs. Blake. The more I thought of it, the more 
inexplicable became the discovery of the mold. 

“That is all very well about the mold on the 
gelatine strip in the letter,” I insisted at length. 
“But, Craig, there must be something wrong some- 
where. Mere molds could not have made Buster 
so ill, and now the infection, or whatever it is, has 
spread to Mrs. Blake herself. What have you 
found out by studying Buster?” 

He looked up from his close scrutiny of the ma- 
terial in one of the test tubes which contained some- 
thing he had recovered from the saline solution of 
the diffusion apparatus. 

I could read on his face that whatever it was, it 
was serious. “What is it?” I repeated almost 
breathlessly. 

“I suppose I might coin a word to describe it,” 
he answered slowly, measuring his phrases. “Per- 
haps it might be called hyper-amino-acidemia.” 

I puckered my eyes at the mouth-filling term 
Kennedy smiled. “It would mean,” he explainec^ 
“a great quantity of the amino-acids, non-coagula- 
ble, nitrogenous compounds in the blood. You know 
the indols, the phenols, and the amins are produced 
both by putrefactive bacteria and by the process of 
metabolism, the burning up of the tissues in the 
process of utilizing the energy that means life. But 
under normal circumstances, the amins are not pres- 
ent in the blood in any such quantities as I have dis- 
covered by this new method of diffusion.” 

He paused a moment, as if in deference to my 
inability to follow him on such an abstruse topic, 
then resumed, “As far as I am able to determine, 
this poison or toxin is an amin similar to that se- 
creted by certain cephalopods found in the ndf/tis 


THE ARTIFICIAL KIDNEY 213. 

borhood of Naples. It is an aromatic amin. Smell 
it.” 

I bent over and inhaled the peculiar odor. 

“Those creatures,” he continued, “catch their prey 
by this highly active poison secreted by the so-called 
salivary glands. Even a little bit will kill a crab 
easily.” 

I was following him now with intense interest, 
thinking of the astuteness of a mind capable of 
thinking of such a poison. 

“Indeed, it is surprising,” he resumed thought- 
fully, “how many an innocent substance can be 
changed by bacteria into a virulent poison. In fact 
our poisons and our drugs are in many instances the 
close relations of harmless compounds that repre- 
sent the intermediate steps in the daily process of 
metabolism.” 

“Then,” I put in, “the toxin was produced by 
germs, after all?” 

“I did not say that,” he corrected. “It might 
have been. But I find no germs in the blood of 
Buster. Nor did Dr. Wilson find any in the blood 
smears which she took from Mrs. Blake.” 

He seemed to have thrown the whole thing back 
again into the limbo of the unexplainable, and I felt 
nonplussed. 

“The writer of that letter,” he went on, waving 
the piece of sterile platinum wire with which he had 
been transferring drops of liquid in his search for 
germs, “was a much more skillful bacteriologist 
than I thought, evidently. No, the trouble does 
not seem to be from germs breathed in, or from 
germs at all — it is from some kind of germ-free 
toxin that has been injected or otherwise intro* 
dwcedt” 


214 THE WAR TERROR 

Vaguely now I began to appreciate the terrible 
significance of what he had discovered. 

“But the letter?” I persisted mechanically. 

“The writer of that was quite as shrewd a psy- 
chologist as bacteriologist,” pursued Craig impres- 
sively. “He calculated the moral effect of the letter, 
then of Buster’s illness, and finally of reaching Mrs. 
Blake herself.” 

“You think Dr. Rae Wilson knows nothing of it 
yet?” I queried. 

Kennedy appeared to consider his answer care- 
fully. Then he said slowly: “Almost any doctor 
with a microscope and the faintest trace of a scien- 
tific education could recognize disease germs either 
naturally or feloniously implanted. But when it 
comes to the detection of concentrated, filtered, 
germ-free toxins, almost any scientist might be baf- 
fled. Walter,” he concluded, “this is not mere black- 
mail, although perhaps the visit of that woman to 
the Prince Henry — a desperate thing in itself, al- 
though she did get away by her quick thinking — 
perhaps that shows that these people are ready to 
stop at nothing. No, it goes deeper than black- 
mail.” 

I stood aghast at the discovery of this new method 
of scientific murder. The astute criminal, whoever 
he might be, had planned to leave not even the slen- 
der clue that might be afforded by disease germs. 
He was operating, not with disease itself, but with 
something showing the ultimate effects, perhaps, of 
disease with none of the preliminary symptoms, baf- 
fling even to the best of physicians. 

I scarcely knew what to say. Before I realized 
it, however, Craig was at last ready for the prom- 


THE ARTIFICIAL KIDNEY 


215 

:sed visit to Mrs. Blake. We went together, carry- 
ing Buster, in his basket, not recovered, to be sure, 
but a very different little animal from the dying 
creature that had been sent to us at the laboratory. 


CHAPTER XXI 


THE POISON BRACELET 

We reached the Blake mansion and were promptly 
admitted. Miss Betty, bearing up bravely under 
Reginald’s reassurances, greeted us before we were 
fairly inside the door, though she and her brother 
were not able to conceal the fact that their mother 
was no better. Miss Sears was out, for an airing, 
and the new nurse, Miss Rogers, was in charge of 
the patient. 

“How do you feel, this morning?” inquired Ken- 
nedy as we entered the sun-parlor, where Mrs. Blake 
had first received us. 

A single glance was enough to satisfy me of the 
seriousness of her condition. She seemed to be in 
almost a stupor from which she roused herself only 
with difficulty. It was as if some overpowering toxin 
were gradually undermining her already weakened 
constitution. 

She nodded recognition, but nothing further. 

Kennedy had set the dog basket down near her 
wheel-chair and she caught sight of it. 

“Buster?” she murmured, raising her eyes. “Is 
—he— all right?” 

For answer, Craig simply raised the lid of the 
basket. Buster already seemed to have recognized 
the voice of his mistress, and, with an almost human 
216 


THE POISON BRACELET 217, 

instinct, to realize that though he himself was still 
weak and ill, she needed encouragement. 

As Mrs. Blake stretched out her slender hand, 
drawn with pain, to his silky head, he gave a little 
yelp of delight and his little red tongue eagerly 
caressed her hand. 

It was as though the two understood each other. 
Although Mrs. Blake, as yet, had no more idea 
what had happened to her pet, she seemed to feel 
by some subtle means of thought transference that 
the intelligent little animal was conveying to her a 
message of hope. The caress, the sharp, joyous 
yelp, and the happy wagging of the bushy tail seemed 
to brighten her up, at least for the moment, almost 
as if she had received a new impetus. 

“Buster !” she exclaimed, overjoyed to get her 
pet back again in so much improved condition. 

“I wouldn’t exert myself too much, Mrs. Blake,” 
cautioned Kennedy. 

“Were — were there any germs in the letter?” she 
asked, as Reginald and Betty stood on the other 
side of the chair, much encouraged, apparently, at 
this show of throwing off the lethargy that had 
seized her. 

“Yes, but about as harmless as those would be 
on a piece of cheese,” Kennedy hastened. 

“But I — I feel so weak, so played out — and my 
head ” 

Her voice trailed off, a too evident reminder that 
her improvement had been only momentary and 
prompted by the excitement of our arrival. 

Betty bent down solicitously and made her more 
comfortable as only one woman can make another. 
Kennedy, meanwhile, had been talking to Miss 

15 


21 8 THE WAR TERROR 

Rogers, and I could see that he was secretly taking 
her measure. 

“Has Dr. Wilson been here this morning? 0 I 
heard him ask. 

“Not yet,° she replied. “But we expect her 
soon.° 

“Professor Kennedy?” announced a servant. 

“Yes?” answered Craig. 

“There is someone on the telephone who wants 
to speak to you. He said he had called the labora- 
tory first and that they told him to call you here.” 

Kennedy hurried after the servant, while Betty 
and Reginald joined me, waiting, for we seemed to 
feel that something was about to happen. 

“One of the unofficial detectives has unearthed a 
clue,” he whispered to me a few moments later when 
he returned. “It was Garwood.” Then to the 
others he added, “A car, repainted, and with the 
number changed, but otherwise answering the de- 
scription of Dr. Wilson’s has been traced to the 
West Side. It is somewhere in the neighborhood of 
a saloon and garage where drivers of taxicabs hang 
out. Reginald, I wish you would come along with 
us.” 

To Betty’s unspoken question Craig hastened to 
add, “I don’t think there is any immediate danger. 
If there is any change — let me know. I shall call 
up soon. And meanwhile,” he lowered his voice to 
impress the instruction on her, “don’t leave your 
mother for a moment — not for a moment,” he em- 
phasized. 

Reginald was ready and together we three set off 
to meet Garwood at a subway station near the point 
where the car had been reported. We had scarcely 
closed the front door, when we ran into Duncan 


THE POISON BRACELET 219 

Baldwin, coming down the street, evidently bent on 
inquiring how Mrs. Blake and Betty were. 

“Much better,” reassured Kennedy. “Come on, 
Baldwin. We can’t have too many on whom we can 
rely on an expedition like this.” 

“Like what?” he asked, evidently not compre- 
hending. 

“There’s a clue, they think, to that car of Dr. 
Wilson’s,” hastily explained Reginald, linking his 
arm into that of his friend and falling in behind 
us, as Craig hurried ahead. 

It did not take long to reach the subway, and as 
we waited for the train, Craig remarked: “This is a 
pretty good example of how the automobile is be- 
coming one of the most dangerous of criminal 
weapons. All one has to do nowadays, apparently, 
after committing a crime, is to jump into a waiting 
car and breeze away, safe.” 

We met Garwood and under his guidance picked 
our way westward from the better known streets in 
the heart of the city, to a section that was anything 
but prepossessing. 

The place which Garwood sought was a typical 
Raines Law hotel on a corner, with a saloon on the 
first floor, and apparently the requisite number of 
rooms above to give it a legal license. 

We had separated a little so that we would not 
attract undue attention. Kennedy and I entered the 
swinging doors boldly, while the others continued 
across to the other corner to wait with Garwood 
and take in the situation. It was a strange expedi- 
tion and Reginald was fidgeting while Duncan 
seemed nervous. 

Among the group of chauffeurs lounging at the 
bar and in the back room anyone who had ever had 


220 


THE WAR TERROR 


any dealings with the gangs of New York might 
have recognized the faces of men whose pictures 
were in the rogues’ gallery and who were members 
of those various aristocratic organizations of the 
underworld. 

Kennedy glanced about at the motley crowd. 
“This is a place where you need only to be intro- 
duced properly,” he whispered to me, “to have any 
kind of crime committed for you.” 

As we stood there, observing, without appearing 
to do so, through an open window on the side street 
I could tell from the sounds that there was a garage 
in the rear of the hotel. 

We were startled to hear a sudden uproar from 
the street. 

Garwood, impatient at our delay, had walked 
down past the garage to reconnoiter. A car was 
being backed out hurriedly, and as it turned and 
swung around the corner, his trained eye had recog- 
nized it. 

Instantly he had reasoned that it was an attempt 
to make a getaway, and had raised an alarm. 

Those nearest the door piled out, keen for any 
excitement. We, too, dashed out on the street. 
There we saw passing an automobile, swaying and 
lurching at the terrific speed with which its driver, 
urged it up the avenue. As he flashed by he looked 
like an Italian to me, perhaps a gunman. 

Garwood had impressed a passing trolley car 
into service and was pursuing the automobile in it, 
as it swayed on its tracks as crazily as the motor did 
on the roadway, running with all the power the 
motorman could apply. 

A mounted policeman galloped past us, blazing 
away at the tires. The avenue was stirred, as sel- 


221 


THE POISON BRACELET 

dom even in its strenuous life, with reports of shots, 
honking of horns, the clang of trolley bells and the 
shouts of men. 

The pursuers were losing when there came a 
rattle and roar from the rear wheels which told 
that the tires were punctured and the heavy car was 
riding on its rims. A huge brewery wagon crossing 
a side street paused to see the fun, effectually block- 
ing the road. 

The car jolted to a stop. The chauffeur leaped 
out and a moment later dived down into a cellar. In 
that congested district, pursuit was useless. 

“Only an accomplice,” commented Kennedy. 
“Perhaps we can get him some other way if we can 
catch the man — or woman — higher up.” 

Down the street now we could see Garwood sur- 
rounded by a curious crowd but in possession of the 
car. I looked about for Duncan an.4 Reginald. 
They had apparently been swallowed up in the 
crowds of idlers which seemed to be pouring out of 
nowhere, collecting to gape at the excitement, after 
the manner of a New York crowd. 

As I ran my eye over them, I caught sight of 
Reginald near the corner where we had left him in 
an incipient fight with someone who had a fancied 
grievance. A moment later we had rescued him. 

“Where’s Duncan?” he panted. “Did anything 
happen to him? Garwood told us to stay here — 
but we got separated.” 

Policemen had appeared on the heels of the crowd 
and now, except for a knot following Garwood, 
things seemed to be calming down. 

The excitement over, and the people thinning 
out, Kennedy still could not find any trace of Dun- 
can. Finally he glanced in again through the swing- 


222 


THE WAR TERROR 


ing doors. There was Duncan, evidently quite upset 
by what had occurred, fortifying himself at the bar. 

Suddenly from above came a heavy thud, as if 
someone had fallen on the floor above us, followed 
by a suppressed shuffling of feet and a cry of help. 

Kennedy sprang toward a side door which led out 
into the hall to the hotel room above. It was locked. 
Before any of the others he ran out on the street 
and into the hall that way, taking the stairs two 
at a time, past a little cubby-hole of an “office” and 
down the upper hall to a door from which came 
the cry. 

It was a peculiar room into which we burst, half 
bedroom, half workshop, or rather laboratory, for 
on a deal table by a window stood a rack of test- 
tubes, several beakers, and other paraphernalia. 

A chambermaid was shrieking over a woman who 
was lying lethargic on the floor. 

I looked more closely. 

It was Dora Sears. 

For the moment I could not imagine what had 
happened. Had the events of the past few days 
worked on her mind and driven her into temporary 
insanity? Or had the blackmailing gang of auto- 
mobile thieves, failing in extorting money by their 
original plan, seized her? 

Kennedy bent over and tried to lift her up. As 
he did so, the gold bracelet, unclasped, clattered to 
the floor. 

He picked it up and for a moment looked at it. 
It was hollow, but in that part of it where it un- 
clasped could be seen a minute hypodermic needle 
and traces of a liquid. 

“A poison bracelet,” he muttered to himself, “one 
in which enough of a virulent poison could be hidden 


THE POISON BRACELET 


223 

so that in an emergency death could cheat the law.” 

“But this Dr. Hopf,” exclaimed Reginald, who 
stood behind us looking from the insensible girl to 
the bracelet and slowly comprehending what it all 
meant, “she alone knows where and who he is!” 

We looked at Kennedy. What was to be done? 
Was the criminal higher up to escape because one 
of his tools had been cornered and had taken the 
easiest way to get out? 

Kennedy had taken down the receiver of the wall 
telephone in the room. A moment later he was 
calling insistently for his laboratory. One of the 
students in another part of the building answered. 
Quickly he described the apparatus for vividiffusion 
and how to handle it without rupturing any of the 
delicate tubes.” 

“The large one,” he ordered, “with one hundred 
and ninety-two tubes. And hurry.” 

Before the student appeared, came an ambulance 
which some one in the excitement had summoned. 
Kennedy quickly commandeered both the young doc- 
tor and what surgical material he had with him. 

Briefly he explained what he proposed to do and 
before the student arrived with the apparatus, they 
had placed the nurse in such a position that they 
were ready for the operation. 

The next room which was unoccupied had been 
thrown open to us and there I waited with Reginald 
and Duncan, endeavoring to explain to them the 
mysteries of the new process of washing the blood. 

The minutes lengthened into hours, as the blood 
of the poisoned girl coursed through its artificial 
channel, literally being washed of the toxin from the 
poisoned bracelet. 

Would it succeed? It had saved the life of 


THE WAR TERROR 


224 

Buster. But would it bring back the unfortunate 
before us, long enough even for her to yield her 
secret and enable us to catch the real criminal. What 
if she died? 

As Kennedy worked, the young men with me be- 
came more and more fascinated, watching him. The 
vividiffusion apparatus was now in full operation. 

In the intervals when he left the apparatus in 
charge of the young ambulance surgeon Kennedy 
was looking over the room. In a trunk which was 
open he found several bundles of papers. As he 
ran his eye over them quickly, he selected some and 
stuffed them into his pocket, then went back to watch 
the working of the apparatus. 

Reginald, who had been growing more and more 
nervous, at last asked if he might call up Betty to 
find out how his mother was. 

He came back from the telephone, his face 
wrinkled. 

“Poor mother,” he remarked anxiously, “do you 
think she will pull through, Professor? Betty says 
that Dr. Wilson has given her no idea yet about 
the nature of the trouble.” 

Kennedy thought a moment. “Of course,” he 
said, “your mother has had no such relative amount 
of the poison as Buster has had. I think that un- 
doubtedly she will recover by purely natural means. 
I hope so. But if not, here is the apparatus,” and 
he patted the vividiffusion tubes in their glass case, 
“that will save her, too.” 

As well as I could I explained to Reginald the 
nature of the toxin that Kennedy had discovered. 
Duncan listened, putting in a question now and then. 
But it was evident that his thoughts were on some- 
thing else, and now and then Reginald, breaking into 


THE POISON BRACELET 225 

his old humor, rallied him about thinking of Betty. 

A low exclamation from both Kennedy and the 
surgeon attracted us. 

Dora Sears had moved. 

The operation of the apparatus was stopped, the 
artery and vein had been joined up, and she was 
slowly coming out from under the effects of the 
anesthetic. 

As we gathered about her, at a little distance, we 
heard her cry in her delirium, “I — I would have — 
done — anything — for him.” 

We strained our ears. Was she talking of the 
blackmailer, Dr. Hopf? 

“Who?” asked Craig, bending over close to her 
ear. 

“I — I would — have done anything,” she repeated 
as if someone had contradicted her. She went on, 
dreamily, ramblingly, “He — is — is — my brother. 
I ” 

She stopped through weakness. 

“Where is Dr. Hopf?” asked Kennedy, trying to 
recall her fleeting attention. 

“Dr. Hopf? Dr. Hopf?” she repeated, then 
smiling to herself as people will when they are leav- 
ing the borderline of anesthesia, she repeated the 
name, “Hopf?” 

“Yes,” persisted Kennedy. 

“There is no Dr. Hopf,” she added. “Tell me— 
did — did they ” 

“No Dr. Hopf?” Kennedy insisted. 

She had iapsed again into half insensibility. 

He rose and faced us, speaking rapidly. 

“New York seems to have a mysterious and un- 
canny attraction for odds and ends of humanity, 
among them the great army of adventuresses. In 


226 THE WAR TERROR 

fact there often seems to be something decidedly 
adventurous about the nursing profession. This is 
a girl of unusual education in medicine. Evidently 
she has traveled — her letters show it. Many of 
them show that she has been in Italy. Perhaps it 
was there that she heard of the drug that has been 
used in this case. It was she who injected the germ- 
free toxin, first into the dog, then into Mrs. Blake, 
she who wrote the blackmail letter which was to 
have explained the death.” 

He paused. Evidently she had heard dimly, was 
straining every effort to hear. In her effort she 
caught sight of our faces. 

Suddenly, as if she had seen an apparition, she 
raised herself with almost superhuman strength. 

“Duncan!” she cried. “Duncan! Why — didn’t 
you — get away — while there was time — after you 
warned me?” 

Kennedy had wheeled about and was facing us. 
He was holding in his hand some of the letters he 
had taken from the trunk. Among others was a 
folded piece of parchment that looked like a di- 
ploma. He unfolded it and we bent over to read. 

It was a diploma from the Central Western Col- 
lege of Nursing. As I read the name written in, it 
was with a shock. It was not Dora Sears, but Dora 
Baldwin. 

“A very clever plot,” he ground out, taking a 
step nearer us. “With the aid of your sister and a 
disreputable gang of chauffeurs you planned to 
hasten the death of Mrs. Blake, to hasten the in- 
heritance of the Blake fortune by your future wife. 
I think your creditors will have less chance of col- 
lecting now than ever, Duncan Baldwin,” 


CHAPTER XXII 


THE DEVIL WORSHIPERS 

Tragic though the end of the young nurse, Dora 
Baldwin, had been, the scheme of her brother, in 
which she had become fatally involved, was by no 
means as diabolical as that in the case that con- 
fronted us a short time after that. 

I recall this case particularly not only because it 
was so weird but also because of the unique manner 
in which it began. 

“I am damned — Professor Kennedy — damned!” 

The words rang out as the cry of a lost soul. 
A terrible look of inexpressible anguish and fear was 
written on the face of Craig’s visitor, as she uttered 
them and sank back, trembling, in the easy chair, 
mentally and physically convulsed. 

As nearly as I had been able to follow, Mrs. 
Veda Blair’s story had dealt mostly with a Profes- 
sor and Madame Rapport and something she called 
the “Red Lodge” of the “Temple of the Occult.” 

She was not exactly a young woman, although 
she was a very attractive one. She w^as of an age 
that is, perhaps, even more interesting than youth. 

Veda Blair, I knew, had been, before her recent 
marriage to Seward Blair, a Treacy, of an old, 
though somewhat unfortunate, family. Both the 
Blairs and the Treacys had been intimate and old 
Seward Blair, when he died about a year before, 
227 


228 


THE WAR TERROR 

had left his fortune to his son on the condition that 
he marry Veda Treacy. 

“Sometimes/’ faltered Mrs. Blair, “it is as though 
I had two souls. One of them is dispossessed of its 
body and the use of its organs and is frantic at the 
sight of the other that has crept in.” 

She ended her rambling story, sobbing the ter- 
rible words, “Oh — I have committed the unpardon- 
able sin — I am anathema — I am damned — 
damned!” 

She said nothing of what terrible thing she had 
done and Kennedy, for the present, did not try to 
lead the conversation. But of all the stories that 
I have heard poured forth in the confessional of 
the detective’s office, hers, I think, was the wildest. 

Was she insane? At least I felt that she was sin- 
cere. Still, I wondered what sort of hallucination 
Craig had to deal with, as Veda Blair repeated the 
incoherent tale of her spiritual vagaries. 

Almost, I had begun to fancy that this was a 
case for a doctor, not for a detective, when sud- 
denly she asked a most peculiar question. 

“Can people affect you for good or evil, merely 
by thinking about you?” she queried. Then a 
shudder passed over her. “They may be thinking 
about me now 1” she murmured in terror. 

Her fear was so real and her physical distress so 
evident that Kennedy, who had been listening si- 
lently for the most part, rose and hastened to reas- 
sure her. 

“Not unless you make your own fears affect your- 
self and so play into their hands,” he said earnestly. 

Veda looked at him a moment, then shook her 
head mournfully. “I have seen Dr. Vaughn,” she 
said slowly. 


THE DEVIL WORSHIPERS 229 

Dr. Gilbert Vaughn, I recollected, was a well- 
known alienist in the city. 

“He tried to tell me the same thing,” she resumed 
doubtfully. “But — oh — I know what I know! I 
have felt the death thought — and he knows it!” 

“What do you mean?” inquired Kennedy, lean- 
ing forward keenly. 

“The death thought,” she repeated, “a malicious 
psychic attack. Some one is driving me to death by 
it. I thought I could fight it off. I went away to 
escape it. Now I have come back — and I have not 
escaped. There is always that disturbing influence 
— always — directed against me. I know it will — 
kill m el” 

I listened, startled. The death thought! What 
did it mean? What terrible power was it? Was it 
hypnotism? What was this fearsome, cruel belief, 
this modern witchcraft that could unnerve a rich 
and educated woman? Surely, after all, I felt that 
this was not a case for a doctor alone; it called 
for a detective. 

“You see,” she went on, heroically trying to con- 
trol herself, “I have always been interested in the 
mysterious, the strange, the occult. In fact my 
father and my husband’s father met through their 
common interest. So, you see, I come naturally 
by it. 

“Not long ago I heard of Professor and Madame 
Rapport and their new Temple of the Occult. I 
went to it, and later Seward became interested, too. 
We have been taken into a sort of inner circle,” she 
continued fearfully, as though there were some evil 
power in the very words themselves, “the Red 
Lodge.” 

“You have told Dr. Vaughn?” shot out Ken- 


230 THE WAR TERROR 

nedy suddenly, his eyes fixed on her face to see what 
it would betray. 

Veda leaned forward, as if to tell a secret, then 
whispered in a low voice, “He knows. Like us — 
he — he is a — Devil Worshiper!” 

“What?” exclaimed Kennedy in wide-eyed aston- 
ishment. 

“A Devil Worshiper,” she repeated. “You 
haven’t heard of the Red Lodge?” 

- Kennedy nodded negatively. “Could you get us 
— initiated?” he hazarded. 

“P-perhaps,” she hesitated, in a half-frightened 
tone. “I — I’ll try to get you in to-night.” 

She had risen, half dazed, as if her own temerity 
overwhelmed her. 

“You — poor girl,” blurted out Kennedy, his sym- 
pathies getting the upper hand for the moment as 
he took the hand she extended mutely. “Trust me. 
I will do all in my power, all in the power of modern 
science to help you fight off this — influence.” 

There must have been something magnetic, hyp- 
notic in his eye. 

“I will stop here for you,” she murmured, as she 
almost fled from the room. 

Personally, I cannot say that I liked the idea of 
spying. It is not usually clean and wholesome. But 
I realized that occasionally it was necessary. 

“We are in for it now,” remarked Kennedy half 
humorously, half seriously, “to see the Devil in the 
twentieth century.” 

“And I,” I added, “I am, I suppose, to be the re- 
porter to Satan.” 

We said nothing more about it, but I thought 
much about it, and the more I thought, the more 
incomprehensible the thing seemed. I had heard 


THE DEVIL WORSHIPERS 231 

of Devil Worship, but had always associated it with 
far-off Indian and other heathen lands — in fact 
never among Caucasians in modern times, except 
possibly in Paris. Was there such a cult here in 
my own city? I felt skeptical. 

That night, however, promptly at the appointed 
time, a cab called for us, and in it was Veda Blair, 
nervous but determined. 

“Seward has gone ahead,” she explained. “I told 
him that a friend had introduced you, that you had 
studied the occult abroad. I trust you to carry it 
out.” 

Kennedy reassured her. 

The curtains were drawn and we could see noth- 
ing outside, though we must have been driven sev- 
eral miles, far out into the suburbs. 

At last the cab stopped. As we left it we could 
see nothing of the building, for the cab had entered 
a closed courtyard. 

“Who enters the Red Lodge?” challenged a sepul- 
chral voice at the porte-cochere. “Give the pass- 
word!” 

“The Serpent’s Tooth,” Veda answered. 

“Who are these?” asked the voice. 

“Neophytes,” she replied, and a whispered parley 
followed. 

“Then enter!” announced the voice at length. 

It was a large room into which we were first 
ushered, to be inducted into the rites of Satan. 

There seemed to be both men and women, per- 
haps half a dozen votaries. Seward Blair was al- 
ready present. As I met him, I did not like the look 
in his eye; it was too stary. Dr. Vaughn was there, 
too, talking in a low tone to Madame Rapport. He 
shot a quick look at us. His were not eyes but gim- 


232 THE WAR TERROR 

lets that tried to bore into your very soul. Chat- 
ting with Seward Blair was a Mrs. Langhorne, a 
very beautiful woman. To-night she seemed to be 
unnaturally excited. 

All seemed to be on most intimate terms, and, as 
we waited a few minutes, I could not help recalling 
a sentence from Huysmans: “The worship of the 
Devil is no more insane than the worship of God. 
The worshipers of Satan are mystics — mystics of 
an unclean sort, it is true, but mystics none the less.” 

I did not agree with it, and did not repeat it, of 
course, but a moment later I overheard Dr. Vaughn 
saying to Kennedy: “Hoffman brought the Devil 
into modern life. Poe forgoes the aid of demons 
and works patiently and precisely by the scientific 
method. But the result is the same.” 

“Yes,” agreed Kennedy for the sake of appear- 
ances, “in a sense, I suppose, we are all devil wor- 
shipers in modern society — always have been. It 
is fear that rules and we fear the bad — not the 
good.” 

As we waited, I felt, more and more, the sense 
of the mysterious, the secret, the unknown which 
have always exercised a powerful attraction on the 
human mind. Even the aeroplane and the sub- 
marine, the X-ray and wireless have not banished 
the occult. 

In it, I felt, there was fascination for the frivolous 
and deep appeal to the intellectual and spiritual. 
The Temple of the Occult had evidently been de- 
signed to appeal to both types. I wondered how, 
like Lucifer, it had fallen. The prime requisite, I 
could guess already, however, was — money. Was 
it in its worship of the root of all evil that it had 
fallen? 


THE DEVIL WORSHIPERS 233 

We passed soon into another room, hung entirely 
in red, with weird, cabalistic signs all about, on the 
walls. It was uncanny, creepy. 

A huge reproduction in plaster of one of the most 
sardonic of Notre Dame’s gargoyles seemed to pre- 
side over everything — a terrible figure in such an 
atmosphere. 

As we entered, we were struck by the blinding 
glare of the light, in contrast with the darkened 
room in which we had passed our brief novitiate, if 
it might be called such. 

Suddenly the lights were extinguished. 

The great gargoyle shone with an infernal light of 
its own! 

“Phosphorescent paint,” whispered Kennedy to 
me. 

Still, it did not detract from the weird effect to 
know what caused it. 

There was a startling noise in the general hush. 

“Sata!” cried one of the devotees. 

A door opened and there appeared the veritable 
priest of the Devil — pale of face, nose sharp, mouth 
bitter, eyes glassy. 

“That is Rapport,” Vaughn whispered to me. 

The worshipers crowded forward. 

Without a word, he raised his long, lean fore- 
finger and began to single them out impressively. 
As he did so, each spoke, as if imploring aid. 

He came to Mrs. Langhorne. 

“I have tried the charm,” she cried earnestly, 
“and the one whom I love still hates me, while the 
one I hate loves me !” 

“Concentrate!” replied the priest, “concentrate! 
Think always ‘I love him. He must love me. I 
want him to love me. I love him. He must love 
16 


THE WAR TERROR 


234 

me.’ Over and over again you must think it. Then 
the other side, ‘I hate him. He must leave me. I 
want him to leave me. I hate him — hate him.* ” 

Around the circle he went. 

At last his lean finger was outstretched at Veda. 
It seemed as if some imp of the perverse were com- 
pelling her unwilling tongue to unlock its secrets. 

“Sometimes,” she cried in a low, tremulous voice, 
“something seems to seize me, as if by the hand 
and urge me onward. I canot flee from it.” 

“Defend yourself!” answered the priest subtly. 
“When you know that some one is trying to kill you 
mentally, defend yourself! Work against it by 
every means in your power. Discourage! Intimi- 
date! Destroy!” 

I marveled at these cryptic utterances. They 
shadowed a modern Black Art, of which I had had 
no conception — a recrudescence in other language of 
the age-old dualism of good and evil. It was a sort 
of mental malpractice. 

“Over and over again,” he went on speaking to 
her, “the same thought is to be repeated against an 
enemy. ‘You know you are going to die! You 
know you are going to die!’ Do it an hour, two 
hours, at a time. Others can help you, all thinking 
in unison the same thought.” 

What was this, I asked myself breathlessly — a 
new transcendental toxicology? 

Slowly, a strange mephitic vapor seemed to ex- 
hale into the room — or was it my heightened im- 
agination? 


CHAPTER XXIII 


THE PSYCHIC CURSE 

There came a sudden noise — nameless — striking 
terror, low, rattling. I stood rooted to the spot. 
What was it that held me? Was it an atavistic joy 
in the horrible or was it merely a blasphemous curi- 
osity? 

I scarcely dared to look. 

At last I raised my eyes. There was a live snake, 
upraised, his fangs striking out viciously — a rattler ! 

I would have drawn back and fled, but Craig 
caught my arm. 

“Caged,” he whispered monosyllabically. 

I shuddered. This, at least, was no drawing- 
room diablerie. 

“It is Ophis,” intoned Rapport, “the Serpent — 
the one active form in Nature that cannot be un- 
graceful!” 

The appearance of the basilisk seemed to heighten 
the tension. 

At last it broke loose and then followed the most 
terrible blasphemies. The disciples, now all fren- 
zied, surrounded closer the priest, the gargoyle and 
the serpent. 

They worshiped with howls and obscenities. Mad 
laughter mingled with pale fear and wild scorn in 
turns were written on the hectic faces about me, 

They had risen — it became a dance, a reel. 

235 


236 THE WAR TERROR 

The votaries seemed to spin about on their axe^, 
as it were, uttering a low, moaning chant as they 
whirled. It was a mania, the spirit of demonism. 
Something unseen seemed to urge them on. 

Disgusted and stifled at the surcharged atmos- 
phere, I would have tried to leave, but I seemed 
frozen to the spot. I could think of nothing except 
Poe’s Masque of the Red Death. 

Above all the rest whirled Seward Blair him- 
self. The laugh of the fiend, for the moment, was 
in his mouth. An instant he stood — the oracle of 
the Demon — devil-possessed. Around whirled the 
frantic devotees, howling. 

Shrilly he cried, “The Devil is in me !” 

Forward staggered the devil dancer — tall, hag- 
gard, with deep sunken eyes and matted hair, face 
now smeared with dirt and blood-red with the reflec- 
tion of the strange, unearthly phosphorescence. 

He reeled slowly through the crowd, crooning a 
quatrain, in a low, monotonous voice, his eyelids 
drooping and his head forward on his breast: 

If the Red Slayer think he slays, 

Or the slain think he is slain, 

They know not well the subtle ways 
I keep and pass and turn again ! 

Entranced the whirling crowd paused and 
watched. One of their number had received the 
“power.” 

He was swaying slowly to and fro. 

“Look!” whispered Kennedy. 

His fingers twitched, his head wagged uncannily. 
Perspiration seemed to ooze from every pore. His 
breast heaved. 


THE PSYCHIC CURSE 237 

He gave a sudden yell — ear-piercing. Then fol- 
lowed a screech of hellish laughter. 

The dance had ended, the dancers spellbound at 
the sight. 

He was whirling slowly, eyes protruding now, 
mouth foaming, chest rising and falling like a bel- 
lows, muscles quivering. 

Cries, vows, imprecations, prayers, all blended in 
an infernal hubbub. 

With a burst of ghastly, guttural laughter, he 
shrieked, “I am the Devil!” 

His arms waved — cutting, sawing, hacking the 
air. 

The votaries, trembling, scarcely moved, breathed, 
as he danced. 

Suddenly he gave a great leap into the air — then 
fell, motionless. They crowded around him. The 
fiendish look was gone — the demoniac laughter 
stilled. 

It was over. 

The tension of the orgy had been too much for 
us. We parted, with scarcely a word, and yet I 
could feel that among the rest there was a sort of 
unholy companionship. 

Silently, Kennedy and I drove away in the dark- 
ened cab, this time with Seward and Veda Blair and 
Mrs. Langhorne. 

For several minutes not a word was said. I was, 
however, much occupied in watching the two women. 
It was not because of anything they said or did. 
That was not necessary. But I felt that there was a 
feud, something that set them against each other. 

“How would Rapport use the death thought, I 
wonder?” asked Craig speculatively, breaking the 
silence, 


238 THE WAR TERROR 

Blair answered quickly. “Suppose some one tried 
to break away, to renounce the Lodge, expose its 
secrets. They would treat him so as to make him 
harmless — perhaps insane, confused, afraid to talk, 
paralyzed, or even to commit suicide or be killed in 
an accident. They would put the death thought on 
him!” 

Even in the prosaic jolting of the cab, away from 
the terrible mysteries of the Red Lodge, one could 
feel the spell. 

The cab stopped. Seward was on his feet in a 
moment and handing Mrs. Langhorne out at her 
home. For a moment they paused on the steps for 
an exchange of words. 

In that moment I caught flitting over the face of 
Veda a look of hatred, more intense, more real, 
more awful than any that had been induced under 
the mysteries of the rites at the Lodge. 

It was gone in an instant, and as Seward rejoined 
us I felt that, with Mrs. Langhorne gone, there 
was less restraint. I wondered whether it was she 
who had inspired the fear in Veda. 

Although it was more comfortable, the rest of 
our journey was made in silence and the Blairs 
dropped us at our apartment with many expressions 
of cordiality as we left them to proceed to their 
own. 

“Of one thing I’m sure,” I remarked, entering 
the room where only a few short hours before Mrs. 
Blair had related her strange tale. “Whatever the 
cause of it, the devil dancers don’t sham.” 

Kennedy did not reply. He was apparently 
wrapped up in the consideration of the remarkable 
events of the evening. 

As for myself, it was a state of affairs which, the 


THE PSYCHIC CURSE 239 

day before, I should have pronounced utterly be- 
yond the wildest bounds of the imagination of the 
most colorful writer. Yet here it was ; I had seen it. 

I glanced up to find Kennedy standing by the 
light examining something he had apparently picked 
up at the Red Lodge. I bent over to look at it, 
too. It was a little glass tube. 

“An ampoule, I believe the technical name of such 
a container is,” he remarked, holding it closer to the 
light. . 

In it were the remains of a dried yellow sub- 
stance, broken up minutely, resembling crystals. 

“Who dropped it?” I asked. 

“Vaughn, I think,” he replied. “At least, I saw 
him near Blair, stooping over him, at the end, and 
I imagine this is what I saw gleaming for an instant 
in the light.” 

Kennedy said nothing more, and for my part I 
was thoroughly at sea and could make nothing out 
of it all. 

“What object can such a man as Dr. Vaughn pos- 
sibly have in frequenting such a place?” I asked at 
length, adding, “And there’s that Mrs. Langhorne 
— she was interesting, too.” 

Kennedy made no direct reply. “I shall have 
them shadowed to-morrow,” he said briefly, “while 
I am at work in the laboratory over this ampoule.” 

As usual, also, Craig had begun on his scientific 
studies long before I was able to shake myself loose 
from the nightmares that haunted me after our 
weird experience of the evening. 

He had already given the order to an agency for 
the shadowing, and his next move was to start me 
out, also, looking into the history of those con- 
cerned in the case. As far as I was able to deter- 


2 4 o THE WAR TERROR 

mine, Dr. Vaughn had an excellent reputation, and 
I could find no reason whatever for his connection 
with anything of the nature of the Red Lodge. The 
Rapports seemed to be nearly unknown in New 
York, although it was reported that they had come 
from Paris lately. Mrs. Langhorne was a di- 
vorcee from one of the western states, but little was 
known about her, except that she always seemed to 
be well supplied with money. It seemed to be well 
known in the circle in which Seward Blair moved 
that he was friendly with her, and I had about 
reached the conclusion that she was unscrupulously 
making use of his friendship, perhaps was not above 
such a thing as blackmail. 

Thus the day passed, and we heard no word 
from Veda Blair, although that was explained by 
the shadows, whose trails crossed in a most unex- 
pected manner. Their reports showed that there 
was a meeting at the Red Lodge during the late 
afternoon, at which all had been present except Dr. 
Vaughn. We learned also from them the exact 
location of the Lodge, in an old house just across 
the line in Westchester. 

It was evidently a long and troublesome analysis 
that Craig was engaged in at the laboratory, for it 
was some hours after dinner that night when he 
came into the apartment, and even then he said 
nothing, but buried himself in some of the technical 
works with which his library was stocked. He said 
little, but I gathered that he was in great doubt 
about something, perhaps, as much as anything, 
about how to proceed with so peculiar a case. 

It was growing late, and Kennedy was still steeped 
in his books, when the door of the apartment, which 
we happened to have left unlocked, was suddenly 


THE PSYCHIC CURSE 241 

thrown open and Seward Blair burst in on us, wildly 
excited. 

“Veda is gone!’ , he cried, before either of us 
could ask him what was the matter. 

“Gone?” repeated Kennedy. “How’ — where?” 

“I don’t know,” Blair blurted out breathlessly. 
“We had been out together this afternoon, and I 
returned with her. Then I went out to the club 
after dinner for a while, and when I got back I 
missed her — not quarter of an hour ago. I burst 
into her room — and there I found this note. Read 
it. I don’t know what to do. No one segns to 
know what has become of her. I’ve called up all 
over and then thought perhaps you might help me, 
might know some friend of hers that I don’t know, 
with whom she might have gone out.” 

Blair was plainly eager for us to help him. Ken- 
nedy took the paper from him. On it, in a trem- 
bling hand, were scrawled some words, evidently ad- 
dressed to Blair himself: 

“You would forgive me and pity me if you knew 
what I have been through. 

“When I refused to yield my will to the will of 
the Lodge I suppose I aroused the enmity of the 
Lodge. 

“To-night as I lay in bed, alone, I felt that my 
hour had come, that mental forces that were almost 
irresistible were being directed against me. 

“I realized that I must light not only for my 
sanity but for my life. 

“For hours I have fought that light. 

“But during those hours, some one, I won’t say 
who, seemed to have developed such psychic facul- 
ties of penetration that they were able to make their 
bodies pass through the walls of my room, 


242 THE WAR TERROR 

“At last I am conquered. I pray that you ” 

The writing broke off abruptly, as if she had left 
it in wild flight. 

“What does that mean?” asked Kennedy, “the 
‘will of the Lodge’?” 

Blair looked at us keenly. I fancied that there was 
even something accusatory in the look. “Perhaps it 
was some mental reservation on her part,” he sug- 
gested. “You do not know yourself of any reason 
why she should fear anything, do you?” he asked 
pointedly. 

Kennedy did not betray even by the motion of an 
eyelash that we knew more than we should ostensi- 
bly. 

There was a tap at the door. I sprang to open 
it, thinking perhaps, after all, it was Veda herself. 

Instead, a man, a stranger, stood there. 

“Is this Professor Kennedy?” he asked^ touching 
his hat. 

Craig nodded. 

“I am from the psychopathic ward of the City 
Hospital — an orderly, sir,” the man introduced. 

“Yes,” encouraged Craig, “what can I do for 
you?” 

“A Mrs. Blair has just been brought in, sir, and 
we can’t find her husband. She’s calling for you 
now.” 

Kennedy stared from the orderly to Seward Blair, 
startled, speechless. 

“What has happened?” asked Blair anxiously. 
“I am Mr. Blair.” 

The orderly shook his head. He had delivered 
his message. That was all he knew. 

“What do you suppose it is?” I asked, as we sped 


THE PSYCHIC CURSE 


243 

across town in a taxicab. “Is it the curse that she 
dreaded?” 

Kennedy said nothing and Blair appeared to hear 
nothing. His face was drawn in tense lines. 

The psychopathic ward is at once one of the most 
interesting and one of the most depressing depart- 
ments of a large city hospital, harboring, as it does, 
all from the more or less harmless insane to violent 
alcoholics and wrecked drug fiends. 

Mrs. Blair, we learned, had been found hatless, 
without money, dazed, having fallen, after an ap- 
parently aimless wandering in the streets. 

For the moment she lay exhausted on the white 
bed of the ward, eyes glazed, pupils contracted, pulse 
now quick, now almost evanescent, face drawn, 
breathing difficult, moaning now and then in physical 
and mental agony. 

Until she spoke it was impossible to tell what had 
happened, but the ambulance surgeon had found a 
little red mark on her white forearm and had 
pointed it out, evidently with the idea that she was 
suffering from a drug. 

At the mere sight of the mark, Blair stared as 
though hypnotized. Leaning over to Kennedy, so 
that the others could not hear, he whispered, “It is 
the mark of the serpent!” 

Our arrival had been announced to the hospital 
physician, who entered and stood for a moment look- 
ing at the patient. 

“I think it is a drug— a poison,” he said medita- 
tively. 

“You haven’t found out yet what is is, then?” 
asked Craig. 

The physician shook his head doubtfully. “What- 
ever it is,” he said slowly, “it is closely allied to the 


244 THE WAR TERROR 

cyanide groups in its rapacious activity. I haven’t 
the slightest idea of its true nature, but it seems to 
have a powerful affinity for important nerve centers 
of respiration and muscular coordination, as well as 
for disorganizing the blood. I should say that it 
produces death by respiratory paralysis and convul- 
sions. To my mind it is an exact, though perhaps 
less active, counterpart of hydrocyanic acid.” 

Kennedy had been listening intently at the start, 
but before the physician had finished he had bent 
over and made a ligature quickly with his handker- 
chief. 

Then he dispatched a messenger with a note. 
Next he cut about the minute wound on her arm 
until the blood flowed, cupping it to increase the 
flow. Now and then he had them administer a little 
stimulant. 

He had worked rapidly, while Blair watched him 
with a sort of fascination. 

“Get Dr. Vaughn,” ordered Craig, as soon as he 
had a breathing spell after his quick work, adding, 
“and Professor and Madame Rapport. Walter, at- 
tend to that, will you ? I think you will find an offi- 
cer outside. You’ll have to compel them to come, 
if they won’t come otherwise,” he added, giving the 
address of the Lodge, as we had found it. 

Blair shot a quick look at him, as though Craig in 
his knowledge were uncanny. Apparently, the ad- 
dress had been a secret which he thought we did 
not know. 

I managed to find an officer and dispatch him for 
the Rapports. A hospital orderly, I thought, would 
serve to get Dr. Vaughn. 


CHAPTER XXIV 


THE SERPENT’S TOOTH 

I had scarcely returned to the ward when, sud- 
denly, an unnatural strength seemed to be infused 
into Veda. 

She had risen in bed. 

“It shall not catch me!” she cried in a new 
paroxysm of nameless terror. “No — no — it is pur- 
suing me. I am never out of its grasp. I have been 
thought six feet underground — I know it. There it 
is again — still driving me — still driving me ! 

“Will it never stop? Will no one stop it? Save 
me! It — is the death thought!” 

She had risen convulsively and had drawn back 
in abject, cowering terror. What was it she saw? 
Evidently it was very real and very awful. It pur- 
sued her relentlessly. 

As she lay there, rolling her eyes about, she 
caught sight of us and recognized us for the first 
time, although she had been calling for us. 

“They had the thought on you, too, Professor 
Kennedy,” she almost screamed. “Hour after hour, 
Rapport and the rest repeated over and over again, 
‘Why does not some one kill him? Why does he 
not die?’ They knew you — even when I brought 
you to the Red Lodge. They thought you were a 
spy.” 

I turned to Kennedy. He had advanced and was 

245 : 


THE WAR TERROR 


246 

leaning over to catch every word. Blair was stand- 
ing behind me and she had not seen her husband 
yet. A quick glance showed me that he was trem- 
bling from head to foot like a leaf, as though he, 
too, were pursued by the nameless terror. 

“What did they do?” Kennedy asked in a low 
tone. 

Fearfully, gripping the bars of the iron bed, as 
though they were some tangible support for her 
mind, she answered: “They would get together. 
‘Now, all of you,’ they said, ‘unite yourselves in 
thought against our enemy, against Kennedy, that 
he must leave off persecuting us. He is ripe for 
destruction!’ ” 

Kennedy glanced sidewise at me, with a signifi- 
cant look. 

“God grant,” she implored, “that none haunt me 
for what I have done in my ignorance!” 

Just then the door opened and my messenger en- 
tered, accompanied by Dr. Vaughn. 

I had turned to catch the expression on Blair’s 
face just in time. It was a look of abject appeal. 

Before Dr. Vaughn could ask a question, or fairly 
take in the situation, Kennedy had faced him. 

“What was the purpose of all that elaborate 
mummery out at the Red Lodge?” asked Kennedy 
pointblank. 

I think I looked at Craig in no less amazement 
than Vaughn. In spite of the dramatic scenes 
through which we had passed, the spell of the oc- 
cult had not fallen on him for an instant. 

“Mummery?” repeated Dr. Vaughn, bending his 
penetrating eyes on Kennedy, as if he would force 
him to betray himself first. 

“Yes,” reiterated Craig. “You know as well as 


THE SERPENT’S TOOTH 247 

I do that it has been said that it is a well-established 
fact that the world wants to be deceived and is will- 
ing to pay for the privilege.” 

Dr. Vaughn still gazed from one to the other of 
us defiantly. 

“You know what I mean,” persisted Kennedy, 
“the mumbo-jumbo — just as the Haitian obi man 
sticks pins in a doll or melts a wax figure of his 
enemy. That is supposed to be an outward sign. 
But back of this terrible power that people believe 
moves in darkness and mystery is something tangi- 
ble — something real.” 

Dr. Vaughn looked up sharply at him, I think 
mistaking Kennedy’s meaning. If he did, all doubt 
that Kennedy attributed anything to the supernatural 
was removed as he went on: “At first I had no ex- 
planation of the curious events I have just witnessed, 
and the more I thought about them, the more ob- 
scure did they seem. 

“I have tried to reason the thing out,” he con- 
tinued thoughtfully. “Did auto-suggestion, self- 
hypnotism explain what I have seen? Has Veda 
Blair been driven almost to death by her own fears 
only?” 

No one interrupted and he answered his own 
question. “Somehow the idea that it was purely 
fear that had driven her on did not satisfy me. As 
I said, I wanted something more tangible. I could 
not help thinking that it was not merely subjective. 
There was something objective, some force at work, 
something more than psychic in the result achieved 
by this criminal mental marauder, whoever it is.” 

I was following Kennedy’s reasoning now closely. 
As he proceeded, the point that he was making 
seemed more clear to me. 


248 THE WAR TERROR 

Persons of a certain type of mind could be really 
mentally unbalanced by such methods which we 
had heard outlined, where the mere fact of another 
trying to exert power over them became known to 
them. They would, as a matter of fact, unbalance 
themselves, thinking about and fighting off imaginary 
terrors. 

Such people, I could readily see, might be quickly 
controlled, and in the wake of such control would 
follow stifled love, wrecked homes, ruined fortunes, 
suicide and even death. 

Dr. Vaughn leaned forward critically. “What 
did you conclude, then, was the explanation of what 
you saw last night?” he asked sharply. 

Kennedy met his question squarely, without flinch- 
ing. “It looks to me,” he replied quietly, “like a 
sort of hystero-epilepsy. It is well known, I be- 
lieve, to demonologists — those who have studied this 
sort of thing. They have recognized the contortions, 
the screams, the wild, blasphemous talk, the cata- 
leptic rigidity. They are epileptiform.” 

Vaughn said nothing, but continued to weigh Ken- 
nedy as if in a balance. I, who knew him, knew that 
it would take a greater than Vaughn to find him 
wanting, once Kennedy chose to speak. As for 
Vaughn, was he trying to hide behind some techni- 
cality in medical ethics? 

“Dr. Vaughn,” continued Craig, as if goading 
him to the point of breaking down his calm silence, 
“you are specialist enough to know these things as 
w T ell, better than I do. You must know that epi- 
lepsy is one of the most peculiar diseases. 

“The victim may be in good physical condition, 
apparently. In fact, some hardly know that they 
have it. But it is something more than merely the 


THE SERPENT’S TOOTH 249 

fits. Always there is something wrong mentally. It 
is not the motor disturbance so much as the dia* 
turbance of consciousness.” 

Kennedy was talking slowly, deliberately, so that 
none could drop a link in the reasoning. 

“Perhaps one in ten epileptics has insane periods, 
more or less,” he went on, “and there is no more 
dangerous form of insanity. Self-consciousness is 
lost, and in this state of automatism the worst of 
crimes have been committed without the subsequent 
knowledge of the patient. In that state they are no 
more responsible than are the actors in one’s 
dreams.” 

The hospital physician entered, accompanied by 
Craig’s messenger, breathless. Craig almost seized 
the package from his hands and broke the seal. 

“Ah — this is what I wanted,” he exclaimed, with 
an air of relief, forgetting for the time the exposi- 
tion of the case that he was engaged in. “Here I 
have some anti-crotalus venine, of Drs. Flexner and 
Noguchi. Fortunately, in the city it is within easy 
reach.” 

Quickly, with the aid of the physician he injected 
it into Veda’s arm. 

“Of all substances in nature,” he remarked, still 
at work over the unfortunate woman, “none is so 
little known as the venom of serpents.” 

It was a startling idea which the sentence had 
raised in my mind. All at once I recalled the first 
remark of Seward Blair, in which he had repeated 
the password that had admitted us into the Red 
Lodge — “the Serpent’s Tooth.” Could it have been 
that she had really been bitten at some of the orgies 
by the serpent which they worshiped hideously hiss- 
ing in its cage? I was sure that, at least until they 


THE WAR TERROR 


250 

were compelled, none would say anything about it. 
Was that the interpretation of the almost hynotized 
look on Blair’s face? 

“We know next to nothing of the composition of 
the protein bodies in the venoms which have such 
terrific, quick physiological effects,” Kennedy was 
saying. “They have been studied, it is true, but we 
cannot really say that they are understood — or even 
that there are any adequate tests by which they can 
be recognized. The fact is, that snake venoms are 
about the safest of poisons for the criminal.” 

Kennedy had scarcely propounded this startling 
idea when a car was heard outside. The Rapports 
had arrived, wfith the officer I had sent after them, 
protesting and threatening. 

They quieted down a bit as they entered, and after 
a quick glance around saw who was present. 

Professor Rapport gave one glance at the victim 
lying exhausted on the bed, then drew back, melo- 
dramatically, and cried, “The Serpent — the mark of 
the serpent!” 

For a moment Kennedy gazed full in the eyes of 
them all. 

“Was it a snake bite?” he asked slowly, then, 
turning to Mrs. Blair, after a quick glance, he went 
on rapidly, “The first thing to ascertain is whether 
the mark consists of two isolated punctures, from 
the poison-conducting teeth or fangs of the snake, 
which are constructed like a hypodermic needle.” 

The hospital physician had bent over her at the 
words, and before Kennedy could go on interrupted : 
“This was not a snake bite; it was more likely from 
an all-glass hypodermic syringe with a platinum- 
iridium needle.” 

Professor Rapport, priest of the Devil, advanced 


THE SERPENT’S TOOTH 


251 

a step menacingly toward Kennedy. “Remember,” 
he said in a low, angry tone, “remember — you are 
pledged to keep the secrets of the Red Lodge!” 

Craig brushed aside the sophistry with a sentence. 
“I do not recognize any secrets that I have to keep 
about the meeting this afternon to which you sum- 
moned the Blairs and Mrs. Langhorne, according 
to reports from the shadows I had placed on Mrs. 
Langhorne and Dr. Vaughn.” 

If there is such a thing as the evil eye, Rapport’s 
must have been a pair of them, as he realized that 
Kennedy had resorted to the simple devices of shad- 
owing the devotees. 

A cry, almost a shriek, startled us. Kennedy’s 
encounter with Rapport had had an effect which 
none of us had considered. The step or two in ad- 
vance which the prophet had taken had brought him 
into the line of vision of the still half-stupefied Veda 
lying back of Kennedy on the hospital cot. 

The mere sight of him, the sound of his voice and 
the mention of the Red Lodge had been sufficient 
to penetrate that stupor. She was sitting bolt up- 
right, a ghastly, trembling specter. Slowly a smile 
seemed to creep over the cruel face of the mystic. 
Was it not a recognition of his hypnotic power? 

Kennedy turned and laid a gentle hand on the 
quaking convulsed figure of the woman. One could 
feel the electric tension in the air, the battle of two 
powers for good or evil. Which would win — the 
old fascination of the occult or the new power of 
science? 

It was a dramatic moment. Yet not so dramatic 
as the outcome. To my surprise, neither won. 

Suddenly she caught sight of her husband. Her 


252 THE WAR TERROR 

face changed. All the prehistoric jealousy of which 
woman is capable seemed to blaze forth. 

‘‘I will defend myself!” she cried. “I will fight 
back! She shall not win — she shall not have you — 
no — she shall not — never!” 

I recalled the strained feeling between the two 
women that I had noticed in the cab. Was it Mrs. 
Langhorne who had been the disturbing influence, 
whose power she feared, over herself and over her 
husband? 

Rapport had fallen back a step, but not from the 
mind of Kennedy. 

“Here,” challenged Craig, facing the group and 
drawing from his pocket the glass ampoule, “I 
picked this up at the Red Lodge last night.” 

He held it out in his hand before the Rapports so 
that they could not help but see it. Were they 
merely good actors? They betrayed nothing, at 
least by face or action. 

“It is crotalin,” he announced, “the venom of the 
rattlesnake — crotalus horridus. It has been noticed 
that persons suffering from certain diseases of which 
epilepsy is one, after having been bitten by a rattle- 
snake, if they recover from the snake bite, are cured 
of the disease.” 

Kennedy was forging straight ahead now in his 
exposure. “Crotalin,” he continued, “is one of the 
new drugs used in the treatment of epilepsy. But it 
is a powerful two-edged instrument. Some one who 
knew the drug, who perhaps had used it, has tried 
an artificial bite of a rattler on Veda Blair, not for 
epilepsy, but for another, diabolical purpose, think- 
ing to cover up the crime, either as the result of the 
so-called death thought of the Lodge or as the bite 
of the real rattler at the Lodge.” 


THE SERPENT’S TOOTH 253 

Kennedy had at last got under Dr. Vaughn’s 
guard. All his reticence was gone. 

“I joined the cult,” he confessed. “I did it in 
order to observe and treat one of my patients for 
epilepsy. I justified myself. I said, ‘I will be the 
exposer, not the accomplice, of this modern Satan- 
ism.’ I joined it and ” 

“There is no use trying to shield anyone, 
Vaughn,” rapped out Kennedy, scarcely taking time 
to listen. “An epileptic of the most dangerous crim- 
inal type has arranged this whole elaborate setting 
as a plot to get rid of the wife who brought him 
his fortune and now stands in the way of his unholy 
love of Mrs. Langhorne. He used you to get the 
poison with which you treated him. He used the 
Rapports with money to play on her mysticism by 
their so-called death thought, while he watched his 
opportunity to inject the fatal crotalin.” 

Craig faced the criminal, whose eyes now showed 
more plainly than words his deranged mental con- 
dition, and in a low tone added, “The Devil is in 
you, Seward Blair 1 ” 


CHAPTER XXV 


THE “HAPPY DUST” 

Veda Blair's rescue from the strange use that 
was made of the venom came at a time when the city 
was aroused as it never had been before over the 
nation-wide agitation against drugs. 

Already, it will be recalled, Kennedy and I had 
had some recent experience with dope fiends of vari- 
ous kinds, but this case I set down because it drew 
us more intimately into the crusade. 

“I’ve called on you, Professor Kennedy, to see if 
I can’t interest you in the campaign I am planning 
against drugs.” 

Mrs. Claydon Sutphen, social leader and suffra- 
gist, had scarcely more than introduced herself when 
she launched earnestly into the reason for her visit 
to us. 

“You don’t realize it, perhaps,” she continued 
rapidly, “but very often a little silver bottle of 
tablets is as much a necessary to some women of the 
smart set as cosmetics.” 

“I’ve heard of such cases,” nodded Craig encour- 
agingly. 

“Well, you see I became interested in the subject,” 
she added, “when I saw some of my own friends 
going down. That’s how I came to plan the cam- 
paign in the first place.” 

She paused, evidently nervous. “I’ve been threat- 

2 54 


THE “HAPPY DUST’ 


ened, too,” she went on, “but I’m not going to give 
up the fight. People think that drugs are a curse 
only to the underworld, but they have no idea what 
inroads the habit has made in the upper world, too. 
Oh, it is awful!” she exclaimed. 

Suddenly, she leaned over and whispered, “Why, 
there’s my own sister, Mrs. Garrett. She began 
taking drugs after an operation, and now they have 
a terrible hold on her. I needn’t try to conceal any- 
thing. It’s all been published in the papers — every- 
body knows it. Think of it — divorced, disgraced, 
all through these cursed drugs! Dr. Coleman, our 
family physician, has done everything known to 
break up the habit, but he hasn’t succeeded.” 

Dr. Coleman, I knew, was a famous society physi- 
cian. If he had failed, I wondered why she thought 
a detective might succeed. But it was evidently an- 
other purpose she had in mind in introducing the 
subject. 

“So you can understand what it all means to me, 
personally,” she resumed, with a sigh. “I’ve stud- 
ied the thing — I’ve been forced to study it. Why, 
now the exploiters are even making drug fiends of 
mere— children !” 

Mrs. Sutphen spread out a crumpled sheet of 
note paper before us on which was written something 
in a trembling scrawl. “For instance, here’s a let- 
ter I received only yesterday.” 

Kennedy glanced over it carefully. It was signed 
“A Friend,” and read: 

“I have heard of your drug war in the newspapers 
and wish to help you, only I don’t dare to do so 
openly. But I can assure you that if you will investi- 
gate what I am about to tell you, you will soon be on 
the trail of those higher up in this terrible drug busi- 


THE WAR TERROR 


256 

ness. There is a little center of the traffic on West 
66th Street, just off Broadway. I cannot tell you 
more, but if you can investigate it, you will be doing 
more good than you can possibly realize now. There 
is one girl there, whom they call ‘Snowbird.’ If you 
could only get hold of her quietly and place her in a 
sanitarium you might save her yet.” 

Craig was more than ordinarily interested. “And 
the children — what did you mean by that?” 

“Why, it’s literally true,” asserted Mrs. Sutphen 
in a horrified tone. “Some of the victims are actu- 
ally school children. Up there in 66th Street we 
have found a man named Armstrong, who seems to 
be very friendly with this young girl whom they 
call ‘Snowbird.’ Her real name, by the way, is Saw- 
telle, I believe. She can’t be over eighteen, a mere 
child, yet she’s a slave to the stuff.” 

“Oh, then you have actually already acted on the 
hint in the letter?” asked Craig. 

“Yes,” she replied, “I’ve had one of the agents of 
our Anti-Drug Society, a social worker, investigat- 
ing the neighborhood.” 

Kennedy nodded for her to go on. 

“I’ve even investigated myself a little, and now I 
want to employ some one to break the thing up. My 
husband had heard of you and so here I am. Can 
you help me?” 

There was a note of appeal in her voice that was 
irresistible to a man who had the heart of Ken- 
nedy. 

“Tell me just what you have discovered so far,” 
he asked simply. 

“Well,” she replied slowly, “after my agent veri- 
fied the contents of the letter, I watched until I saw 
fchis girl — she’s a mere child, as I said — going to a 


257 


THE “HAPPY DUST” 

cabaret in the neighborhood. What struck me was 
that I saw her go in looking like a wreck and come 
out a beautiful creature, with bright eyes, flushed 
cheeks, almost youthful again. A most remarkable 
girl she is, too,” mused Mrs. Sutphen, “who always 
wears a white gown, white hat, white shoes and 
white stockings. It must be a mania with her.” 

Mrs. Sutphen seemed to have exhausted her small 
store of information, and as she rose to go Ken- 
nedy rose also. “I shall be glad to look into the 
case, Mrs. Sutphen,” he promised. “I’m sure there 
is something that can be done — there must be.” 

“Thank you, ever so much,” she murmured, as 
she paused at the door, something still on her mind. 
“And perhaps, too,” she added, “you may run across 
my sister, Mrs. Garrett.” 

“Indeed,” he assured her, “if there is anything I 
can possibly do that will assist you personally, I 
shall be only too happy to do it.” 

“Thank you again, ever so much,” she repeated 
with just a little choke in her voice. 

For several moments Kennedy sat contemplating 
the anonymous letter which she had left with him, 
studying both its contents and the handwriting. 

“We must go over the ground up there again,” he 
remarked finally. “Perhaps we can do better than 
Mrs. Sutphen and her drug investigator have done.” 

Half an hour later we had arrived and were saun- 
tering along the street in question, walking slowly 
up and down in the now fast-gathering dusk. It 
was a typical cheap apartment block of variegated 
character, with people sitting idly on the narrow 
front steps and children spilling out into the road- 
way in imminent danger of their young lives from 
every passing automobile, 


THE WAR TERROR 


258 

On the crowded sidewalk a creation in white hur- 
ried past us. One glance at the tense face in the 
flickering arc light was enough for Kennedy. He 
pulled my arm and we turned and followed at a safe 
distance. 

She looked like a girl who could not have been 
more than eighteen, if she was as old as that. She 
was pretty, too, but already her face was beginning 
to look old and worn from the use of drugs. It was 
unmistakable. 

In spite of the fact that she was hurrying, it was 
not difficult to follow her in the crowd, as she picked 
her way in and out, and finally turned into Broad- 
way where the white lights were welcoming the 
night. 

Under the glare of a huge electric sign she 
stopped a moment, then entered one of the most no- 
torious of the cabarets. 

We entered also at a discreet distance and sat 
down at a table. 

“Don’t look around, Walter,” whispered Craig, 
as the waiter took our order, “but to your right is 
Mrs. Sutphen.” 

If he had mentioned any other name in the world, 
I could not have been more surprised. I waited im- 
patiently until I could pick her out from the corner 
of my eye. Sure enough, it was Mrs. Sutphen and 
another woman. What they were doing there I 
could not imagine, for neither had the look of 
habitues of such a place. 

I followed Kennedy’s eye and found that he was 
gazing furtively at a flashily dressed young man 
who was sitting alone at the far end in a sort of 
booth upholstered in leather. 

The girl in white, whom I was now sure was Miss 


THE “HAPPY DUST” 


259 

Sawtelle, went over and greeted him. It was too 
far to see just what happened, but the young woman 
after sitting down rose and left almost immediately. 
As nearly as I could make out, she had got some- 
thing from him which she had dropped into her 
handbag and was now hugging the handbag close to 
herself almost as if it were gold. 

We sat for a few minutes debating just what to 
do, when Mrs. Sutphen and her friend rose. As 
she passed out, a quick, covert glance told us to fol- 
low. We did so and the two turned into Broadway. 

“Let me present you to Miss McCann,” intro- 
duced Mrs. Sutphen as we caught up with them. 
“Miss McCann is a social worker and trained in- 
vestigator whom I’m employing.” 

We bowed, but before we could ask a question, 
Mrs. Sutphen cried excitedly: “I think I have a clue, 
anyway. We’ve traced the source of the drugs at 
least as far as that young fellow, ‘Whitecap,’ whom 
you saw in there.” 

I had not recognized his face, although I had 
undoubtedly seen pictures of him before. But no 
sooner had I heard the name than I recognized it as 
that of one of the most notorious gang leaders on 
the West Side. 

Not only that, but Whitecap’s gang played an im- 
portant part in local politics. There was scarcely 
a form of crime or vice to which Whitecap and his 
followers could not turn a skilled hand, whether it 
was swinging an election, running a gambling club, 
or dispensing “dope.” 

“You see,” she explained, “even before I saw you, 
my suspicions were aroused and I determined to ob- 
tain some of the stuff they are using up here, if pos- 
sible. I realized it would be useless for me to try to 


'±6o THE WAR TERROR 

get It myself, so I got Miss McCann from the 
Neighborhood House to try it. She got it and has 
turned the bottle over to me.” 

“May I see it?” asked Craig eagerly. 

Mrs. Sutphen reached hastily into her handbag, 
drew forth a small brown glass bottle and handed 
it to him. Craig retreated into one of the less dark 
side streets. There he pulled out the paraffinned 
cork from the bottle, picked out a piece of cotton 
stuffed in the neck of the bottle and poured out some 
flat tablets that showed a glistening white in the 
palm of his hand. For an instant he regarded them. 

“I may keep these?” he asked. 

“Certainly,” replied Mrs. Sutphen. “That’s what 
I had Miss McCann get them for.” 

Kennedy dropped the bottle into his pocket. 

“So that was the gang leader, ‘Whitecap,’ ” he 
remarked as we turned again to Broadway. 

“Yes,” replied Mrs. Sutphen. “At certain hours, 
I believe he can be found at that cabaret selling this 
stuff, whatever it is, to anyone who comes properly 
introduced. The thing seems to be so open and no- 
torious that it amounts to a scandal.” 

We parted a moment later, Mrs. Sutphen and 
Miss McCann to go to the settlement house, Craig 
and I to continue our investigations. 

“First of all, Walter,” he said as we swung 
aboard an uptown car, “I want to stop at the labora- 
tory.” 

In his den, which had been the scene of so many 
triumphs, Kennedy began a hasty examination of the 
tablets, powdering one and testing it with one chem- 
ical after another. 

“What are they?” I asked at length when he 


THE “HAPPY DUST’* 261 

seemed to have found the right reaction which gave 
him the clue. 

“Happy dust,” he answered briefly. 

“Happy dust?” I repeated, looking at him a mo- 
ment in doubt as to whether he was joking or seri- 
ous. “What is that?” 

“The Tenderloin name for heroin — a compara- 
tively new derivative of morphine. It is really 
morphine treated with acetic acid which renders it 
more powerful than morphine alone.” 

“How do they take them? What’s the effect?” I 
asked. 

“The person who uses heroin usually powders the 
tablets and snuffs the powder up the nose,” he an- 
swered. “In a short time, perhaps only two or three 
weeks, one can become a confirmed victim of ‘happy 
dust.’ And while one is under its influence he is 
morally, physically and mentally irresponsible.” 

Kennedy was putting away the paraphernalia he 
had used, meanwhile talking about the drug. “One 
of the worst aspects of it, too,” he continued, “is the 
desire of the user to share his experience with some 
one else. This passing on of the habit, which seems 
to be one of the strongest desires of the drug fiend, 
makes him even more dangerous to society than he 
would otherwise be. It makes it harder for any- 
one once addicted to a drug to shake it off, for his 
friends will give him no chance. The only thing to 
do is to get the victim out of his environment and 
into an entirely new scene.” 

The laboratory table cleared again, Kennedy had 
dropped into a deep study. 

“Now, why was Mrs. Sutphen there?” he asked 
aloud. “I can’t think it was solely through her in- 
terest for that girl they call Snowbird- She was in- 


262 THE WAR TERROR 

terested in her, but she made no attempt to interfere 
or to follow her. No, there must have been another 
reason.” 

“You don’t think she’s a dope fiend herself, do 
you?” I asked hurriedly. 

Kennedy smiled. “Hardly, Walter. If she has 
any obsession on the subject, it is more likely to lead 
her to actual fanaticism against all stimulants and 
narcotics and everything connected with them. No, 
you might possibly persuade me that two and two 
equal five — but not seventeen. It’s not very late. I 
think we might make another visit to that cabaret 
and see whether the same thing is going on yet.” 




* 


CHAPTER XXVI 

THE BINET TEST 

We rode downtown again and again sauntered in, 
this time with the theater crowd. Our first visit had 
been so quiet and unostentatious that the second at- 
tracted no attention or comment from the waiters, 
or anyone else. 

As we sat down we glanced over, and there in his 
corner still was Whitecap. Apparently his supply of 
the dope was inexhaustible, for he was still dis- 
pensing it. As we watched the tenderloin habitues 
come and go, I came soon to recognize the signs by 
the mere look on the face — the pasty skin, the va- 
cant eye, the nervous quiver of the muscles as though 
every organ and every nerve were crying out for 
more of the favorite nepenthe. Time and again I 
noticed the victims as they sat at the tables, growing 
more and more haggard and worn, until they could 
stand it no longer. Then they would retire, some- 
times after a visit across the floor to Whitecap, more 
often directly, for they had stocked themselves up 
with the drug evidently after the first visit to him. 
But always they would come back, changed in ap- 
pearance, with what seemed to be a new lease of 
life, but nevertheless still as recognizable as drug 
victims. 

It was not long, as we waited, before another 
woman, older than Miss Sawtelle, but dressed in 
263 


THE WAR TERROR 


264 

an extreme fashion, hurried into the cabaret and 
with scarcely a look to right or left went directly 
to Whitecap’s corner. I noticed that she, too, had 
the look. 

There was a surreptitious passing of a bottle in 
exchange for a treasury note, and she dropped into 
the seat beside him. 

Before he could interfere, she had opened the 
bottle, crushed a tablet or two in a napkin, and was 
holding it to her face as though breathing the most 
exquisite perfume. With one quick inspiration of 
her breath after another, she was snuffing the pow- 
der up her nose. 

Whitecap with an angry gesture pulled the napkin 
from her face, and one could fancy his snarl under 
his breath, “Say — do you want to get me in wrong 
here?” 

But it was too late. Some at least of the happy 
dust had taken effect, at least enough to relieve the 
terrible pangs she must have been suffering. 

As she rose and retired, with a hasty apology to 
Whitecap for her indiscretion, Kennedy turned to 
me and exclaimed, “Think of it. The deadliest of 
all habits is the simplest. No hypodermic; no pipe; 
no paraphernalia of any kind. It’s terrible.” 

She returned to sit down and enjoy herself, care- 
ful not to obtrude herself on Whitecap lest he might 
become angry at the mere sight of her and treasure 
his anger up against the next time when she would 
need the drug. 

Already there was the most marvelous change in 
her. She seemed captivated by the music, the danc- 
ing, the life which a few moments before she had 
totally disregarded. 

She was seated alone, not far from us, and as 


THE BINET TEST 265 

she glanced about Kennedy caught her eye. She 
allowed her gaze to rest on us for a moment, the 
signal for a mild flirtation which ended in our ex- 
change of tables and we found ourselves opposite 
the drug fiend, who was following up the taking of 
the dope by a thin-stemmed glass of a liqueur. 

I do not recall the conversation, but it was one of 
those inconsequential talks that Bohemians consider 
so brilliant and everybody else so vapid. As we 
skimmed from one subject to another, treating the 
big facts of life as if they were mere incidents and 
the little as if they overshadowed all else, I could 
see that Craig, who had a faculty of probing into 
the very soul of anyone, when he chose, was gradu- 
ally leading around to a subject which I knew he 
wanted, above all others, to discuss. 

It was not long before, as the most natural remark 
in the world following something he had made her 
say, just as a clever prestidigitator forces a card, he 
asked, “What was it I saw you snuffing over in the 
booth — happy dust?” 

She did not even take the trouble to deny it, but 
nodded a brazen “Yes.” 

“How did you come to use it first?” he asked, 
careful not to give offense in either tone or manner. 

“The usual way, I suppose,” she replied with a 
laugh that sounded harsh and grating. “I was ill 
and I found out what it was the doctor was giving 
me.” 

“And then?” 

“Oh, I thought I would use it only as long as it 
served my purpose and, when that was over, give 
it up.” 

“But ?” prompted Craig hypnotically. 

“Instead, I was soon using six, eight, ten tablets 
18 


2 66 


THE WAR TERROR 


of heroin a day. I found that I needed that amount 
in order to live. Then it went up by leaps to twenty, 
thirty, forty.” 

“Suppose you couldn’t get it, what then?” 

“Couldn’t get it?” she repeated with an unspeak- 
able horror. “Once I thought I’d try to stop. But 
my heart skipped beats; then it seemed to pound 
away, as if trying to break through my ribs. I don’t 
think heroin is like other drugs. When one has her 
‘coke’ — that’s cocaine — taken away, she feels like a 
rag. Fill her up and she can do anything again. 
But, heroin — I think one might murder to get it!” 

The expression on the woman’s face was almost 
tragic. I verily believe that she meant it. 

“Why,” she cried, “if anyone had told me a year 
ago that the time would ever come when I would 
value some tiny white tablets above anything else 
in the world, yes, and even above my immortal soul, 
I would have thought him a lunatic.” 

It was getting late, and as the woman showed no 
disposition to leave, Kennedy and I excused our- 
selves. 

Outside Craig looked at me keenly. “Can you 
guess who that was?” 

“Although she didn’t tell us her name,” I replied, 
“I am morally certain that it was Mrs. Garrett.” 

“Precisely,” he answered, “and what a shame, 
too, for she must evidently once have been a woman 
of great education and refinement.” 

He shook his head sadly. “Walter, there isn’t 
likely to be anything that we can do for some hours 
now. I have a little experiment I’d like to make. 
Suppose you publish for me a story in the Star about 
the campaign against drugs. Tell about what we 
have seen to-night, mention the cabaret by indirec- 


THE BINET TEST 267 

tion and Whitecap directly. Then we can sit back 
and see what happens. We’ve got to throw a scare 
into them somehow, if we are going to smoke out 
anyone higher up than Whitecap. But you’ll have 
to be careful, for if they suspect us our usefulness 
in the case will be over.” 

Together, Kennedy and I worked over our story 
far into the night down at the Star office, and the 
following day waited to see whether anything came 
of it. 

It was with a great deal of interest tempered by 
fear that we dropped into the cabaret the follow- 
ing evening. Fortunately no one suspected us. In 
fact, having been there the night before, we had 
established ourselves, as it were, and were welcomed 
as old patrons and good spenders. 

I noticed, however, that Whitecap was not there. 
The story had been read by such of the dope fiends 
as had not fallen too far to keep abreast of the 
times and these and the waiters were busy quietly 
warning off a line of haggard-eyed, disappointed 
patrons who came around, as usual. 

Some of them were so obviously dependent on 
Whitecap that I almost regretted having written the 
story, for they must have been suffering the tortures 
of the damned. 

It was in the midst of a reverie of this sort that 
a low exclamation from Kennedy recalled my atten- 
tion. There was Snowbird with a man considerably 
older than herself. They had just come in and were 
looking about frantically for Whitecap. But White- 
cap had been too frightened by the story in the Star 
to sell any more of the magic happy dust openly in 
the cabaret, at least. 

The pair, nerve-racked and exhausted, sat down 


268 THE WAR TERROR 

mournfully in a seat near us, and as they talked 
earnestly in low tones we had an excellent oppor- 
tunity for studying Armstrong for the first time. 

He was not a bad-looking man, or even a weak 
one. In back of the dissipation of the drugs one 
fancied he could read the story of a brilliant life 
wrecked. But there was little left to admire or re- 
spect. As the couple talked earnestly, the one so 
old, the other so young in vice, I had to keep a tight 
rein on myself to prevent my sympathy for the 
wretched girl getting the better of common sense 
and kicking the older man out of doors. 

Finally Armstrong rose to go, with a final im- 
ploring glance from the girl. Obviously she had 
persuaded him to forage about to secure the heroin, 
by hook or crook, now that the accustomed source 
of supply was cut off so suddenly. 

It was also really our first chance to study the 
girl carefully under the light, for her entrance and 
exit the night before had been so hurried that we 
had seen comparatively little of her. Craig was 
watching her narrowly. Not only were the effects 
of the drug plainly evident on her face, but it was 
apparent that the snuffing the powdered tablets was 
destroying the bones in her nose, through shrinkage 
of the blood vessels, as well as undermining the 
nervous system and causing the brain to totter. 

I was wondering whether Armstrong knew of any 
depot for the secret distribution of the drug. I 
could not believe that Whitecap was either the chief 
distributer or the financial head of the illegal traffic. 
I wondered who indeed was the man higher up. 
Was he an importer of the drug, or was he the rep- 
resentative of some chemical company not averse to 


THE BINET TEST 269 

making an illegal dollar now and then by dragging 
down his fellow man? 

Kennedy and I were trying to act as if we were 
enjoying the cabaret show and not too much inter- 
ested in the little drama that was being acted be- 
fore us. I think little Miss Sawtelle noticed, how- 
ever, that we were looking often her way. I was 
amazed, too, on studying her more closely to find 
that there was something indefinably queer about 
her, aside from the marked effect of the drugs she 
had been taking. What it was I was at a loss to de- 
termine, but I felt sure from the expression on Ken- 
nedy’s face that he had noticed it also. 

I was on the point of asking him if he, too, ob- 
served anything queer in the girl, when Armstrong 
hurried in and handed her a small package, then 
almost without a word stalked out again, evidently 
as much to Snowbird’s surprise as to our own. 

She had literally seized the package, as though 
she were drowning and grasping at a life buoy. 
Even the surprise at his hasty departure could not 
prevent her, however, from literally tearing the 
wrapper off, and in the sheltering shadow of the 
table cloth pouring forth the little white pellets in 
her lap, counting them as a miser counts his gold. 

“The old thief!” she exclaimed aloud. “He’s 
held out twenty-five!” 

I don’t know which it was that amazed me most, 
the almost childish petulance and ungovernable tem- 
per of the girl which made her cry out in spite of 
her surroundings and the circumstances, or the petty 
rapacity of the man who could stoop to such a low 
level as to rob her in this seeming underhand man- 
ner. 

There was no time for useless repining now. The 


270 THE WAR TERROR 

call of outraged nature for its daily and hourly 
quota of poison was too imperative. She dumped 
the pellets back into the bottle hastily, and disap- 
peared. 

When she came back, it was with that expression 
I had come to know so well. At least for a few 
hours there was a respite for her from the terrific 
pangs she had been suffering. She was almost happy, 
smiling. Even that false happiness, I felt, was su- 
perior to Armstrong’s moral sense blunted by drugs. 
I had begun to realize how lying, stealing, crimes of 
all sorts might be laid at the door of this great evil. 

In her haste to get where she could snuff the 
heroin she had forgotten a light wrap lying on her 
chair. As she returned for it, it fell to the floor. 
Instantly Kennedy was on his feet, bending over to 
pick it up. 

She thanked him, and the smile lingered a mo- 
ment on her face. It was enough. It gave Ken- 
nedy the chance to pursue a conversation, and in the 
free and easy atmosphere of the cabaret to invite 
her to sit over at our table. 

At least all her nervousness was gone and she 
chatted vivaciously. Kennedy said little. He was 
too busy watching her. It was quite the opposite 
of the case of Mrs. Garrett. Yet I was at a loss to 
define what it was that I sensed. 

Still the minutes sped past and we seemed to be 
getting on famously. Unlike his action in the case 
of the older woman where he had been sounding the 
depths of her heart and mind, in this case his idea 
seemed to be to allow the childish prattle to come 
out and perhaps explain itself. 

However, at the end of half an hour when we 
seemed to be getting no further along, Kennedy did 


THE BINET TEST 


271 

not protest at her desire to leave us, “to keep a 
date,” as she expressed it. 

“Waiter, the check, please,” ordered Kennedy 
leisurely. 

When he received it, he seemed to be in no great 
hurry to pay it, but went over one item after an- 
other, then added up the footing again. 

“Strange how some of these waiters grow rich?” 
Craig remarked finally with a gay smile. 

The idea of waiters and money quickly brought 
some petty reminiscences to her mind. While she 
was still talking, Craig casually pulled a pencil out 
of his pocket and scribbled some figures on the back 
of the waiter’s check. 

From where I was sitting beside him, I could see 
that he had written some figures similar to the fol- 
lowing : 

5183 

47395 

654726 

2964375 

47293815 

924738651 

2146073859 

“Here’s a stunt,” he remarked, breaking into the 
conversation at a convenient point. “Can you re- 
peat these numbers after me?” 

Without waiting for her to make excuse, he said 
quickly “5183.” “5183,” she repeated mechani- 

cally. 

“47395,” came in rapid succession, to which she 
replied, perhaps a little slower than before, 
“ 47395 -” 

“Now, 654726,” he said. 


272 THE WAR TERROR 

“654726,” she repeated, I thought with some 
hesitation. 

“Again, 2964375,” he shot out. 

“269,” she hesitated, “73 ” she stopped. 

It was evident that she had reached the limit. 

Kennedy smiled, paid the check and we parted 
at the door. 

“What was all that rigmarole?” I inquired as the 
white figure disappeared down the street. 

“Part of the Binet test, seeing how many digits 
one can remember. An adult ought to remember 
from eight to ten, in any order. But she has the 
mentality of a child. That is the queer thing about 
her. Chronologically she may be eighteen years or 
so old. Mentally she is scarcely more than eight. 
Mrs. Sutphen was right. They have made a fiend 
out of a mere child — a defective who never had a 
chance against them.” 


CHAPTER XXVII 


THE LIE DETECTOR 

As the horror of it all dawned on me, I hated 
Armstrong worse than ever, hated Whitecap, hated 
the man higher up, whoever he might be, who was 
enriching himself out of the defective, as well as 
the weakling, and the vicious — all three typified by 
Snowbird, Armstrong and Whitecap. 

Having no other place to go, pending further 
developments of the publicity we had given the drug 
war in the Star, Kennedy and I decided on a walk 
home in the bracing night air. 

We had scarcely entered the apartment when the 
hall boy called to us frantically: “Some one’s been 
trying to get you all over town, Professor Kennedy. 
Here’s the message. I wrote it down. An attempt 
has been made to poison Mrs. Sutphen. They said 
at the other end of the line that you’d know.” 

We faced each other aghast. 

“My God!” exclaimed Kennedy. “Has that been 
the effect of our story, Walter? Instead of smok- 
ing out anyone — we’ve almost killed some one.” 

As fast as a cab could whisk us around to Mrs. 
Sutphen’s we hurried. 

“I warned her that if she mixed up in any such 
fight as this she might expect almost anything,” re- 
marked Mr. Sutphen nervously, as he met us in 
the reception room. “She’s all right, now, I guess, 
273 


274 THE WAR TERROR 

but if it hadn’t been for the prompt work of the 
ambulance surgeon I sent for, Dr. Coleman says 
she would have died in fifteen minutes.” 

“How did it happen?” asked Craig. 

“Why, she usually drinks a glass of vichy and 
milk before retiring,” replied Mr. Sutphen. “We 
don’t know yet whether it was the vichy or the 
milk that was poisoned, but Dr. Coleman thinks it 
was chloral in one or the other, and so did the am- 
bulance surgeon. I tell you I was scared. I tried 
to get Coleman, but he was out on a case, and I 
happened to think of the hospitals as probably the 
quickest. Dr. Coleman came in just as the young 
surgeon was bringing her around. He — oh, here 
he is now.” 

The famous doctor was just coming downstairs. 
He saw us, but, I suppose, inasmuch as we did not 
belong to the Sutphen and Coleman set, ignored us. 

“Mrs. Sutphen will be all right now,” he said re- 
assuringly as he drew on his gloves. “The nurse has 
arrived, and I have given her instructions what to 
do. And, by the way, my dear Sutphen, I should 
advise you to deal firmly with her in that matter 
about which her name is appearing in the papers. 
Women nowadays don’t seem to realize the dangers 
they run in mixing in in all these reforms. I have 
ordered an analysis of both the milk and vichy, but 
that will do little good unless we can find out who 
poisoned it. And there are so many chances for 
things like that, life is so complex nowadays ” 

He passed out with scarcely a nod at us. Ken- 
nedy did not attempt to question him. He was 
thinking rapidly. 

“Walter, we have no time to lose,” he exclaimed, 
seizing a telephone that stood on a stand near by. 


THE LIE DETECTOR 275 

“This is the time for action. Hello — Police Head- 
quarters, First Deputy O’Connor, please.” 

As Kennedy waited I tried to figure out how it 
could have happened. I wondered whether it might 
not have been Mrs. Garrett. Would she stop at 
anything if she feared the loss of her favorite drug? 
But then there were so many others and so many 
ways of “getting” anybody who interfered with the 
drug traffic that it seemed impossible to figure it out 
by pure deduction. 

“Hello, O’Connor,” I heard Kennedy say; “you 
read that story in the Star this morning about the 
drug fiends at that Broadway cabaret? Yes? Well, 
Jameson and I wrote it. It’s part of the drug war 
that Mrs. Sutphen has been waging. O’Connor, 
she’s been poisoned — oh, no — she’s all right now. 
But I want you to send out and arrest Whitecap and 
that fellow Armstrong immediately. I’m going to 
put them through a scientific third degree up in the 
laboratory to-night. Thank you. No — no matter 
how late it is, bring them up.” 

Dr. Coleman had gone long since, Mr. Sutphen 
had absolutely no interest further than the recovery 
of Mrs. Sutphen just now, and Mrs. Sutphen was 
resting quietly and could not be seen. Accordingly 
Kennedy and I hastened up to the laboratory to wait 
until O’Connor could “deliver the goods.” 

It was not long before one of O’Connor’s men 
came in with Whitecap. 

“While we’re waiting,” said Craig, “I wish you 
would just try this little cut-out puzzle.” 

I don’t know what Whitecap thought, but I know 
I looked at Craig’s invitation to “play blocks” as a 
joke scarcely higher in order than the number repe- 
tition of Snowbird. Whitecap did it, however, sul- 


2 7 6 THE WAR TERROR 

lenly, and under compulsion, in, I should say about 
two minutes. 

“I have Armstrong here myself,” called out the 
voice of our old friend O’Connor, as he burst into 
the room. 

“Good!” exclaimed Kennedy. “I shall be ready 
for him in just a second. Have Whitecap held here 
in the anteroom while you bring Armstrong into the 
laboratory. By the way, Walter, that was another 
of the Binet tests, putting a man at solving puzzles. 
It involves reflective judgment, one of the factors 
in executive ability. If Whitecap had been defec- 
tive, it would have taken him five minutes to do that 
puzzle, if at all. So you see he is not in the class 
with Miss Sawtelle. The test shows him to be 
shrewd. He doesn’t even touch his own dope. Now 
for Armstrong.” 

I knew enough of the underworld to set Whitecap 
down, however, as a “lobbygow” — an agent for 
some one higher up, recruiting both the gangs and 
the ranks of street women. 

Before us, as O’Connor led in Armstrong, was a 
little machine with a big black cylinder. By means 
of wires and electrodes Kennedy attached it to Arm- 
strong’s chest. 

“Now, Armstrong,” he began in an even tone, 
“I want you to tell the truth — the whole truth. You 
have been getting heroin tablets from Whitecap.” 

“Yes, sir,” replied the dope fiend defiantly. 

“To-day you had to get them elsewhere.” 

No answer. 

“Never mind,” persisted Kennedy, still calm, “I 
know. Why, Armstrong, you even robbed that girl 
of twenty-five tablets.” 

“I did not,” shot out the answer. 


THE LIE DETECTOR 


277 

“There were twenty-five short,” accused Kennedy. 

The two faced each other. Craig repeated his 
remark. 

“Yes,” replied Armstrong, “I held out the tablets, 
but it was not for myself. I can get all I want. I 
did it because I didn’t want her to get above seventy- 
five a day. I have tried every way to break her of 
the habit that has got me — and failed. But seventy- 
five — is the limit!” 

“A pretty story!” exclaimed O’Connor. 

Craig laid his hand on his arm to check him, as 
he examined a record registered on the cylinder of 
the machine. 

“By the way, Armstrong, I want you to write me 
out a note that I can use to get a hundred heroin 
tablets. You can write it all but the name of the 
place where I can get them.” 

Armstrong was on the point of demurring, but 
the last sentence reassured him. He would reveal 
nothing by it — yet. 

Still the man was trembling like a leaf. He 
wrote : 

“Give Whitecap one hundred shocks — A Victim.” 

For a moment Kennedy studied the note carefully. 
“Oh — er — I forgot, Armstrong, but a few days ago 
an anonymous letter was sent to Mrs. Sutphen, 
signed ‘A Friend.’ Do you know anything about 
it?” 

“A note?” the man repeated. “Mrs. Sutphen? I 
don’t know anything about any note, or Mrs. Sut- 
phen either.” 

Kennedy was still studying his record. “This,” 
he remarked slowly, “is what I call my psychophysi- 
cal test for falsehood. Lying, when it is practiced 


THE WAR TERROR 


278 

by an expert, is not easily detected by the most care* 
ful scrutiny of the liar’s appearance and manner. 

“However, successful means have been developed 
for the detection of falsehood by the study of ex- 
perimental psychology. Walter, I think you will 
recall the test I used once, the psychophysical fac- 
tor of the character and rapidity of the mental 
process known as the association of ideas?” 

I nodded acquiescence. 

“Well,” he resumed, “in criminal jurisprudence, I 
find an even more simple and more subjective test 
which has been recently devised. Professor Stoer- 
ring of Bonn has found out that feelings of pleasure 
and pain produce well-defined changes in respira- 
tion. Similar effects are produced by lying, accord- 
ing to the famous Professor Benussi of Graz. 

“These effects are unerring, unequivocal. The ut- 
terance of a false statement increases respiration; 
of a true statement decreases. The importance and 
scope of these discoveries are obvious.” 

Craig was figuring rapidly on a piece of paper. 
“This is a certain and objective criterion,” he con- 
tinued as he figured, “between truth and falsehood. 
Even when a clever liar endeavors to escape detec- 
tion by breathing irregularly, it is likely to fail, for 
Benussi has investigated and found that voluntary 
changes in respiration don’t alter the result. You 
see, the quotient obtained by dividing the time of 
inspiration by the time of expiration gives me the 
result.” 

He looked up suddenly. “Armstrong, you are 
telling the truth about some things — downright lies 
about others. You are a drug fiend — but I will be 
lenient with you, for one reason. Contrary to every- 
thing that I would have expected, you are really 


THE LIE DETECTOR 279 

trying to save that poor half-witted girl whom you 
love from the terrible habit that has gripped you. 
That is why you held out the quarter of the one 
hundred tablets. That is why you wrote the note 
to Mrs. Sutphen, hoping that she might be treated 
in some institution.” 

Kennedy paused as a look of incredulity passed 
over Armstrong’s face. 

“Another thing you said was true,” added Ken- 
nedy. “Y ou can get all the heroin you want. Arm- 
strong, you will put the address of that place on the 
outside of the note, or both you and Whitecap go to 
jail. Snowbird will be left to her own devices — she 
can get all the ‘snow,’ as some of you fiends call it, 
that she wants from those who might exploit her.” 

“Please, Mr. Kennedy,” pleaded Armstrong. 

“No,” interrupted Craig, before the drug fiend 
could finish. “That is final. I must have the name 
of that place.” 

In a shaky hand Armstrong wrote again. Hastily 
Craig stuffed the note into his pocket, and ten min- 
utes later we were mounting the steps of a big brown- 
stone house on a fashionable side street just around 
the corner from Fifth Avenue. 

As the door was opened by an obsequious colored 
servant, Craig handed him the scrap of paper signed 
by the password, “A Victim.” 

Imitating the cough of a confirmed dope user, 
Craig was led into a large waiting room. 

“You’re in pretty bad shape, sah,” commented 
the servant. 

Kennedy nudged me and, taking the cue, I 
coughed myself red in the face. 

“Yes,” he said. “Hurry— please.” 

The servant knocked at a door, and as it was 


280 THE WAR TERROR 

opened we caught a glimpse of Mrs. Garrett in 
negligee. 

“What is it, Sam?” she asked. 

“Two gentlemen for some heroin tablets, ma’am.” 

“Tell them to go to the chemical works — not to 
my office, Sam,” growled a man’s voice inside. 

With a quick motion, Kennedy had Mrs. Garrett 
by the wrist. 

“I knew it,” he ground out. “It was all a fake 
about how you got the habit. You wanted to get it, 
so you could get and hold him. And neither one 
of you would stop at anything, not even the murder 
of your sister, to prevent the ruin of the devilish 
business you have built up in manufacturing and 
marketing the stuff.” 

He pulled the note from the hand of the sur- 
prised negro. “I had the right address, the place 
where you sell hundreds of ounces of the stuff a 
week — but I preferred to come to the doctor’s office 
where I could find you both.” 

Kennedy had firmly twisted her wrist until, with 
a little scream of pain, she let go the door handle. 
Then he gently pushed her aside, and the next in- 
stant Craig had his hand inside the collar of Dr. 
Coleman, society physician, proprietor of the Cole- 
man Chemical Works downtown, the real leader of 
the drug gang that was debauching whole sections 
of the metropolis. 


CHAPTER XXVIII 


THE FAMILY SKELETON 

Surprised though we were at the unmasking of 
Dr. Coleman, there was nothing to do but to follow 
the thing out. In such cases we usually ran into 
the greatest difficulty — organized vice. This was 
no exception. 

Even when cases involved only a clever individual 
or a prominent family, it was the same. I recall, 
for example, the case of a well-known family in a 
New York suburb, which was particularly difficult. 
It began in a rather unusual manner, too. 

“Mr. Kennedy — I am ruined — ruined.” 

It was early one morning that the telephone rang 
and I answered it. A very excited German, breath- 
less and incoherent, was evidently at the other end 
of the wire. 

I handed the receiver to Craig and picked up the 
morning paper lying on the table. 

“Minturn — dead?” I heard Craig exclaim. “In 
the paper this morning? I’ll be down to see you 
directly.” 

Kennedy almost tore the paper from me. In the 
next to the end column where late news usually is 
dropped was a brief account of the sudden death of 
Owen Minturn, one of the foremost criminal law- 
yers of the city, in Josephson’s Baths downtown. 

It ended : “It is believed by the coroner that Mr. 

281 


19 


282 THE WAR TERROR 

Minturn was shocked to death and evidence is be- 
ing sought to show that two hundred and forty volts 
of electricity had been thrown into the attorney’s 
body while he was in the electric bath. Joseph Jo- 
sephson, the proprietor of the bath, who operated 
the switchboard, is being held, pending the comple- 
tion of the inquiry.” 

As Kennedy hastily ran his eye over the para- 
graphs, he became more and more excited himself. 

“Walter,” he cried, as he finished, “I don’t be- 
lieve that that was an accident at all.” 

“Why?” I asked. 

He already had his hat on, and I knew he was 
going to Josephson’s breakfastless. I followed re- 
luctantly. 

“Because,” he answered, as we hustled along in 
the early morning crowd, “it was only yesterday 
afternoon that I saw Minturn at his office and he 
made an appointment with me for this very morn- 
ing. He was a very secretive man, but he did tell 
me this much, that he feared his life was in danger 
and that it was in some way connected with that 
Pearcy case up in Stratfield, Connecticut, where he 
has an estate. You have read of the case?” 

Indeed I had. It had seemed to me to be a par- 
ticularly inexplicable affair. Apparently a whole 
family had been poisoned and a few days before old 
Mr. Randall Pearcy, a retired manufacturer, had 
died after a brief but mysterious illness. 

Pearcy had been married a year or so ago to An- 
nette Oakleigh, a Broadway comic opera singer, who 
was his second wife. By his first marriage he had 
had two children, a son, Warner, and a daughter, 
Isabel. 

Warner Pearcy, I had heard, had blazed a ver- 


THE FAMILY SKELETON 283 

milion trail along the Great White Way, but his 
sister was of the opposite temperament, interested 
in social work, and had attracted much attention by 
organizing a settlement in the slums of Stratfield 
for the uplift of the workers in the Pearcy and other 
mills. 

Broadway, as well as Stratfield, had already 
woven a fantastic background, for the mystery and 
hints had been broadly made that Annette Oakleigh 
had been indiscreetly intimate with a young physi- 
cian in the town, a Dr. Gunther, a friend, by the 
way, of' Minturn. 

“There has been no trial yet,” went on Kennedy, 
“but Minturn seems to have appeared before the 
coroner’s jury at Stratfield and to have asserted the 
innocence of Mrs. Pearcy and that of Dr. Gunther so 
well that, although the jury brought in a verdict of 
murder by poison by some one unknown, there has 
been no mention of the name of anyone else. The 
coroner simply adjourned the inquest so that a more 
careful analysis might be made of the vital organs. 
And now comes this second tragedy in New York.” 

“What was the poison?” I asked. “Have they 
found out yet?” 

“They are pretty sure, so Minturn told me, that 
it was lead poisoning. The fact not generally known 
is,” he added in a lower tone, “that the cases were 
not confined to the Pearcy house. They had even 
extended to Minturn’s too, although about that he 
said little yesterday. The estates up there adjoin, 
you know.” 

Owen Minturn, I recalled, had gained a formida- 
ble reputation by his successful handling of cases 
from the lowest strata of society to the highest. 
Indeed it was a byword that his appearance in court 


284 THE WAR TERROR 

Indicated two things — the guilt of the accused and 
a verdict of acquittal. 

‘‘Of course,” Craig pursued as we were jolted 
from station to station downtown, “you know they 
say that Minturn never kept a record of a case. 
But written records were as nothing compared to 
what that man must have carried only In his head.” 

It was a common saying that, If Minturn should 
tell all he knew, he might hang half a dozen promi- 
nent men in society. That was not strictly true, per- 
haps, but it was certain that a revelation of the 
things confided to him by clients which were never 
put down on paper would have caused a series of 
explosions that would have wrecked at least some 
portions of the social and financial world. He had 
heard much and told little, for he had been a sort 
of “father confessor.” 

Had Minturn, I wondered, known the name of 
the real criminal? 

Josephson’s was a popular bath on Forty-second 
Street, where many of the “sun-dodgers” were ac- 
customed to recuperate during the day from their 
arduous pursuit of pleasure at night and prepare for 
the resumption of their toil during the coming night. 
It was more than that, however, for it had a repu- 
tation for being conducted really on a high plane. 

We met Josephson downstairs. He had been re- 
leased under bail, though the place was temporarily 
closed and watched over by the agents of the coro- 
ner and the police. Josephson appeared to be a 
man of some education and quite different from 
what I had imagined from hearing him over the 
telephone. 

“Oh, Mr, Kennedy,” he exclaimed, “who now will 


THE FAMILY SKELETON 285 

come to my baths? Last night they were crowded, 
but to-day ” 

He ended with an expressive gesture of his hands. 

“One customer I have surely lost, young Mr. 
Pearcy,” he went on. 

“Warner Pearcy?” asked Craig. “Was he here 
last night?” 

“Nearly every night,” replied Josephson, now 
glib enough as his first excitement subsided and his 
command of English returned. “He was a neigh- 
bor of Mr. Minturn’s, I hear. Oh, what luck!” 
growled Josephson as the name recalled him to his 
present troubles. 

“Well,” remarked Kennedy with an attempt at 
reassurance as if to gain the masseur’s confidence, 
“I know as well as you that it is often amazing 
what a tremendous shock a man may receive and yet 
not be killed, and no less amazing how small a shock 
may kill. It all depends on circumstances.” 

Josephson shot a covert look at Kennedy. “Yes,” 
he reiterated, “but I cannot see how it could be. 
If the lights had become short-circuited with the 
bath, that might have thrown a current into the 
bath. But they were not. I know it.” 

“Still,” pursued Kennedy, watching him keenly, 
“it is not all a question of current. To kill, the 
shock must pass through a vital organ — the brain, 
the heart, the upper spinal cord. So, a small shock 
may kill and a large one may not. If it passes in 
one foot and out by the other, the current isn’t likely 
to be as dangerous as if it passes in by a hand or 
foot and then out by a foot or hand. In one case 
it passes through no vital organ; in the other it is 
very likely to do so. You see, the current can flow 
through the body only when it has a place of en- 


286 


THE WAR TERROR 

trance and a place of exit. In all cases of accident 
from electric light wires, the victim is touching some 
conductor — damp earth, salty earth, water, some- 
thing that gives the current an outlet and ” 

“But even if the lights had been short-circuited,” 
interrupted Josephson, “Mr. Minturn would have 
escaped injury unless he had touched the taps of 
the bath. Oh, no, sir, accidents in the medical use 
of electricity are rare. They don’t happen here in 
my establishment,” he maintained stoutly. “The 
trouble was that the coroner, without any knowledge 
of the physiological effects of electricity on the body, 
simply jumped at once to the conclusion that it was 
the electric bath that did it.” 

“Then it was for medical treatment that Mr. Min- 
turn was taking the bath?” asked Kennedy, quickly 
taking up the point. 

“Yes, of course,” answered the masseur, eager to 
explain. “You are acquainted with the latest treat- 
ment for lead poisoning by means of the electric 
bath?” 

Kennedy nodded. “I know that Sir Thomas 
Oliver, the English authority who has written much 
on dangerous trades, has tried it with marked suc- 
cess.” 

“Well, sir, that was why Mr. Minturn was here. 
He came here introduced by a Dr. Gunther of Strat- 
field.” 

“Indeed?” remarked Kennedy colorlessly, though 
I could see that it interested him, for evidently Min- 
turn had said nothing of being himself a sufferer 
from the poison. “May I see the bath?” 

“Surely,” said Josephson, leading the way up- 
stairs. 

It was an oaken tub with metal rods on the two 


THE FAMILY SKELETON 287 

long sides, from which depended prismatic carbon 
rods. Kennedy examined it closely. 

“This is what we call a hydro-electric bath,” Jo- 
sephson explained. “Those rods on the sides are 
the electrodes. You see there are no metal parts 
in the tub itself. The rods are attached by wiring 
to a wall switch out here.” 

He pointed to the next room. Kennedy examined 
the switch with care. 

“From it,” went on Josephson, “wires lead to an 
accumulator battery of perhaps thirty volts. It uses 
very little current. Dr. Gunther tested it and found 
it all right.” 

Craig leaned over the bath, and from the carbon 
electrodes scraped off a white powder in minute 
crystals. 

“Ordinarily,” Josephson pursued, “lead is elimi- 
nated by the skin and kidneys. But now, as you 
know, it is being helped along by electrolysis. I 
talked to Dr. Gunther about it. It is his opinion 
that it is probably eliminated as a chloride from the 
tissues of the body to the electrodes in the bath in 
which the patient is wholly or partly immersed. On 
the positive electrodes we get the peroxide. On the 
negative there is a spongy metallic form of lead* 
But it is only a small amount.” 

“The body has been removed?” asked Craig. 

“Not yet,” the masseur replied. “The coroner 
has ordered it kept here under guard until he makes 
up his mind what disposition to have made of it.” 

We were next ushered into a little room on the 
same floor, at the door of which was posted an offi- 
cial from the coroner. 

“First of all,” remarked Craig, as he drew back 
the sheet and began a minute examination of the 


288 


THE WAR TERROR 

earthly remains of the great lawyer, “there are to 
be considered the safeguards of the human body 
against the passage through it of a fatal electric 
current — the high electric resistance of the body it- 
self. It is particularly high when the current must 
pass through joints such as wrists, knees, elbows, 
and quite high when the bones of the head are con- 
cerned. Still, there might have been an incautious 
application of the current to the head, especially 
when the subject is a person of advanced age or 
latent cerebral disease, though I don’t know that 
that fits Mr. Minturn. That’s strange,” he mut- 
tered, looking up, puzzled. “I can find no mark 
of a burn on the body — absolutely no mark of any- 
thing.” 

“That’s what I say,” put in Josephson, much 
pleased by what Kennedy said, for he had been 
waiting anxiously to see what Craig discovered on 
his own examination. “It’s impossible.” 

“It’s all the more remarkable,” went on Craig, 
half to himself and ignoring Josephson, “because 
burns due to electric currents are totally unlike those 
produced in other ways. They occur at the point of 
contact, usually about the arms and hands, or the 
head. Electricity is much to be feared when it in- 
volves the cranial cavity.” 

He completed his examination of the head which 
once had carried secrets which themselves must have 
been incandescent. 

“Then, too, such burns are most often something 
more than superficial, for considerable heat is de- 
veloped which leads to massive destruction and car- 
bonization of the tissues to a considerable depth. I 
have seen actual losses of substance — a lump of 
killed flesh surrounded by healthy tissues. Besides, 


THE FAMILY SKELETON 289 

such burns show an unexpected indolence when com- 
pared to the violent pains of ordinary burns. Per- 
haps that is due to the destruction of the nerve end- 
ings. How did Minturn die? Was he alone? Was 
he dead when he was discovered ?” 

“He was alone,” replied Josephson, slowly en- 
deavoring to tell it exactly as he had seen it, “but 
that’s the strange part of it. He seemed to be suf- 
fering from a convulsion. I think he complained at 
first of a feeling of tightness of his throat and a 
twitching of the muscles of his hands and feet. Any- 
how, he called for help. I was up here and we 
rushed in. Dr. Gunther had just brought him and 
then had gone away, after introducing him, and 
showing him the bath.” 

Josephson proceeded slowly, evidently having 
been warned that anything he said might be used 
against him. “We carried him, when he was this 
way, into this very room. But it was only for a 
short time. Then came a violent convulsion. It 
seemed to extend rapidly all over his body. His legs 
were rigid, his feet bent, his head back. Why, he 
was resting only on his heels and the back of his 
head. You see, Mr. Kennedy, that simply could not 
be the electric shock.” 

“Hardly,” commented Kennedy, looking again at 
the body. “It looks more like a tetanus convulsion. 
Yet there does not seem to be any trace of a recent 
wound that might have caused lockjaw. How did 
he look?” 

“Oh, his face finally became livid,” replied Jo- 
sephson. “He had a ghastly, grinning expression, 
his eyes were wide, there was foam on his mouth, 
and his breathing was difficult.” 

“Not like tetanus, either,” revised Craig. “There 


THE WAR TERROR 


290 

the convulsion usually begins with the face and pro- 
gresses to the other muscles. Here it seems to have 
gone the other way.” 

“That lasted a minute or so,” resumed the mas- 
seur. “Then he sank back — perfectly limp. I 
thought he was dead. But he was not. A cold 
sweat broke out all over him and he was as if in 
a deep sleep.” 

“What did you do?” prompted Kennedy. 

“I didn’t know what to do. I called an ambu- 
lance. But the moment the door opened, his body 
seemed to stiffen again. He had one other com 
vulsion — and when he grew limp he was dead.” 




CHAPTER XXIX 


THE LEAD POISONER 

It was a gruesome recital and I was glad to leave 
the baths finally with Kennedy. Josephson was 
quite evidently relieved at the attitude Craig had 
taken toward the coroner’s conclusion that Minturn 
had been shocked to death. As far as I could see, 
however, it added to rather than cleared up the mys- 
tery. 

Craig went directly uptown to his laboratory, in 
contrast with our journey down, in abstracted si- 
lence, which was his manner when he was trying to 
reason out some particularly knotty problem. 

As Kennedy placed the white crystals which he 
had scraped off the electrodes of the tub on a piece 
of dark paper in the laboratory, he wet the tip of 
his finger and touched just the minutest grain to his 
tongue. 

The look on his face told me that something un- 
expected had happened. He held a similar minute 
speck of the powder out to me. 

It was an intensely bitter taste and very persist- 
ent, for even after we had rinsed out our mouths it 
seemed to remain, clinging persistently to the 
tongue. 

He placed some of the grains in some pure wa- 
ter. They dissolved only slightly, if at all. But in 
ZQl 


THE WAR TERROR 


292 

a tube In which he mixed a little ether and chloro- 
form they dissolved fairly readily. 

Next, without a word, he poured just a drop of 
strong sulphuric acid on the crystals. There was not 
a change in them. 

Quickly he reached up into the rack and took 
down a bottle labeled “Potassium Bichromate.” 

“Let us see what an oxidizing agent will do,” he 
remarked. 

As he gently added the bichromate, there came a 
most marvelous, kaleidoscopic change. From being 
almost colorless, the crystals turned instantly to a 
deep blue, then rapidly to purple, lilac, red, and then 
the red slowly faded away and they became color- 
less again. 

“What is it?” I asked, fascinated. “Lead?” 

“N-no,” he replied, the lines of his forehead deep- 
ening. “No. This is sulphate of strychnine.” 

“Sulphate of strychnine?” I repeated in astonish- 
ment. 

“Yes,” he reiterated slowly. “I might have sus- 
pected that from the convulsions, particularly when 
Josephson said that the noise and excitement of the 
arrival of the ambulance brought on the fatal 
paroxysm. That is symptomatic. But I didn’t fully 
realize it until I got up here and tasted the stuff. 
Then I suspected, for that taste is characteristic. 
Even one part diluted seventy thousand times gives 
that decided bitter taste.” 

“That’s all very well,” I remarked, recalling the 
intense bitterness yet on my tongue. “But how do 
you suppose it was possible for anyone to adminis- 
ter it? It seems to me that he would have said some- 
thing, if he had swallowed even the minutest part 
of it. He must have known it. Yet apparently 


THE LEAD POISONER 293 

he didn’t. At least he said nothing about it — or 
else Josephson is concealing something.” 

“Did he swallow it — necessarily?” queried Ken- 
nedy, in a tone calculated to show me that the chem- 
ical world, at least, was full of a number of things, 
and there was much to learn. 

“Well, I suppose if it had been given hypodermi- 
cally, it would have a more violent effect,” I per- 
sisted, trying to figure out a way that the poison 
might have been given. 

“Even more unlikely,” objected Craig, with a de- 
light at discovering a new mystery that to me seemed 
almost fiendish. “No, he would certainly have felt 
a needle, have cried out and said something about 
it, if anyone had tried that. This poisoned needle 
business isn’t as easy as some people seem to think 
nowadays.” 

“Then he might have absorbed it from the wa- 
ter,” I insisted, recalling a recent case of Kennedy’s 
and adding, “by osmosis.” 

“You saw how difficult it was to dissolve in wa- 
ter,” Craig rejected quietly. 

“Well, then,” I concluded in desperation. “How 
could it have been introduced?” 

“I have a theory,” was all he would say, reach- 
ing for the railway guide, “but it will take me up 
to Stratfield to prove it.” 

His plan gave us a little respite and we paused 
long enough to lunch, for which breathing space I 
was duly thankful. The forenoon saw us on the 
train, Kennedy carrying a large and cumbersome 
package which he brought down with him from the 
laboratory and which we took turns in carrying, 
though he gave no hint of its contents. 

We arrived in Stratfield, a very pretty little mill 


THE WAR TERROR 


294 

town, in the middle of the afternoon, and with very 
little trouble were directed to the Pearcy house, after 
Kennedy had checked the parcel with the station 
agent. 

Mrs. Pearcy, to whom we introduced ourselves 
as reporters of the Star, was a tall blonde. I could 
not help thinking that she made a particularly dash- 
ing widow. With her at the time was Isabel Pearcy, 
a slender girl whose sensitive lips and large, earnest 
eyes indicated a fine, high-strung nature. 

Even before we had introduced ourselves, I could 
not help thinking that there was a sort of hostility 
between the women. Certainly it was evident that 
there was as much difference in temperament as be- 
tween the butterfly and the bee. 

“No,” replied the elder woman quickly to a re- 
quest from Kennedy for an interview, “there is noth- 
ing that I care to say to the newspapers. They have 
said too much already about this — unfortunate af- 
fair.” 

Whether it was imagination or not, I fancied that 
there was an air of reserve about both women. It 
struck me as a most peculiar household. What was 
it? Was each suspicious of the other? Was each 
concealing something? 

I managed to steal a glance at Kennedy’s face 
to see whether there was anything to confirm my 
own impression. He was watching Mrs. Pearcy 
closely as she spoke. In fact his next few ques- 
tions, inconsequential as they were, seemed ad- 
dressed to her solely for the purpose of getting her 
to speak. 

I followed his eyes and found that he was watch- 
ing her mouth, in reality. As she answered I noted 
her beautiful white teeth. Kennedy himself had 


THE LEAD POISONER 


295 

trained me to notice small things, and at the time, 
though I thought it was trivial, I recall noticing on 
her gums, where they joined the teeth, a peculiar 
bluish-black line. 

Kennedy had been careful to address only Mrs. 
Pearcy at first, and as he continued questioning her, 
she seemed to realize that he was trying to lead her 
along. 

“I must positively refuse to talk any more,’* she 
repeated finally, rising. “I am not to be tricked 
into saying anything.” 

She had left the room, evidently expecting that 
Isabel would follow. She did not. In fact I felt 
that Miss Pearcy was visibly relieved by the de- 
parture of her stepmother. She seemed anxious to 
ask us something and now took the first opportunity. 

“Tell me,” she said eagerly, “how did Mr. Min- 
turn die? What do they really think of it in New 
York?” 

“They think it is poisoning,” replied Craig, noting 
the look on her face. 

She betrayed nothing, as far as I could see, ex- 
cept a natural neighborly interest. “Poisoning?” 
she repeated. “By what?” 

“Lead poisoning,” he replied evasively. 

She said nothing. It was evident that, slip of a 
girl though she was, she was quite the match of 
anyone who attempted leading questions. Kennedy 
changed his method. 

“You will pardon me,” he said apologetically, 
“for recalling what must be distressing. But we 
newspapermen often have to do things and ask ques- 
tions that are distasteful. I believe it is rumored 
that your father suffered from lead poisoning?” 

“Oh, I don’t know what it was — none of us do,” 


296 THE WAR TERROR 

she cried, almost pathetically. “I had been living 
at the settlement until lately. When father grew 
worse, I came home. He had such strange visions 
— hallucinations, I suppose you would call them. 
In the daytime he would be so very morose and mel- 
ancholy. Then, too, there were terrible pains in 
his stomach, and his eyesight began to fail. Yes, I 
believe that Dr. Gunther did say it was lead poison- 
ing. But — they have said so many things — so many 
things,” she repeated, plainly distressed at the sub- 
ject of her recent bereavement. 

“Your brother is not at home?” asked Kennedy, 
quickly changing the subject. 

“No,” she answered, then with a flash as though 
lifting the veil of a confidence, added: “You know, 
neither Warner nor I have lived here much this 
year. He has been in New York most of the time 
and I have been at the settlement, as I already told 
you.” 

She hesitated, as if wondering whether she should 
say more, then added quickly: “It has been repeated 
often enough ; there is no reason why I shouldn’t say 
it to you. Neither of us exactly approved of fa- 
ther’s marriage.” 

She checked herself and glanced about, somewhat 
with the air of one who has suddenly considered the 
possibility of being overheard. 

“May I have a glass of water?” asked Kennedy 
suddenly. 

“Why, certainly,” she answered, going to the 
door, apparently eager for an excuse to find out 
whether there was some one on the other side of it. 

There was not, nor any indication that there had 
been. 

“Evidently she does not have any suspicions of 


THE LEAD POISONER 297 

that,” remarked Kennedy in an undertone, half to 
himself. 

I had no chance to question him, for she returned 
almost immediately. Instead of drinking the water, 
however, he held it carefully up to the light. It was 
slightly turbid. 

“You drink the water from the tap?” he asked, 
as he poured some of it into a sterilized vial which 
he drew quickly from his vest pocket. 

“Certainly,” she replied, for the moment non- 
plussed at his strange actions. “Everybody drinks 
the town water in Stratfield.” 

A few more questions, none of which were of im- 
portance, and Kennedy and I excused ourselves. 

At the gate, instead of turning toward the town, 
however, Kennedy went on and entered the grounds 
of the Minturn house next door. The lawyer, I had 
understood, was a widower and, though he lived in 
Stratfield only part of the time, still maintained his 
house there. 

We rang the bell and a middle-aged housekeeper 
answered. 

“I am from the water company,” he began po- 
litely. “We are testing the water, perhaps will sup- 
ply consumers with filters. Can you let me have a 
sample?” 

She did not demur, but invited us in. As she 
drew the water, Craig watched her hands closely. 
She seemed to have difficulty in holding the glass, 
and as she handed it to him, I noticed a peculiar 
hanging down of the wrist. Kennedy poured the 
sample into a second vial, and I noticed that it was 
turbid, too. With no mention of the tragedy to her 
employer, he excused himself, and we walked slowly 
back to the road. 


20 


2 9 8 THE WAR TERROR 

Between the two houses Kennedy paused, and fof 
several moments appeared to be studying them. 

We walked slowly back along the road to the 
town. As we passed the local drug store, Kennedy 
turned and sauntered in. 

He found it easy enough to get into conversation 
with the druggist, after making a small purchase, 
and in the course of a few minutes we found our- 
selves gossiping behind the partition that shut off 
the arcana of the prescription counter from the rest 
of the store. 

Gradually Kennedy led the conversation around 
to the point which he wanted, and asked, “I wish 
you’d let me fix up a little sulphureted hydrogen.” 

“Go ahead,” granted the druggist good-naturedly. 
“I guess you can do it. You know as much about 
drugs as I do. I can stand the smell, if you can.” 

Kennedy smiled and set to work. 

Slowly he passed the gas through the samples of 
water he had taken from the two houses. As he 
did so the gas, bubbling through, made a blackish 
precipitate. 

“What is it?” asked the druggist curiously. 

“Lead sulphide,” replied Kennedy, stroking his 
chin. “This is an extremely delicate test. Why, one 
can get a distinct brownish tinge if lead is present in 
even incredibly minute quantities.” 

He continued to work over the vials ranged on 
the table before him. 

“The water contains, I should say, from ten to 
fifteen hundredths of a grain of lead to the gallon,” 
he remarked finally. 

“Where did it come from?” asked the druggist, 
unable longer to restrain his curiosity. 

“I got it up at Pearcy’s,” Kennedy replied frankly, 


THE LEAD POISONER 299 

turning to observe whether the druggist might be- 
tray any knowledge of it. 

“That’s strange,” he replied in genuine surprise. 
“Our water in Stratfield is supplied by a company 
to a large area, and it has always seemed to me to 
be of great organic purity.” 

“But the pipes are of lead, are they not?” asked 
Kennedy. 

“Y-yes,” answered the druggist, “I think in most 
places the service pipes are of lead. But,” he added 
earnestly as he saw the implication of his admission, 
“water has never to my knowledge been found to 
attack the pipes so as to affect its quality injuri- 
ously.” 

He turned his own faucet and drew a glassful. 
“It is normally quite clear,” he added, holding the 
glass up. 

It was in fact perfectly clear, and when he passed 
some of the gas through it nothing happened at all. 

Just then a man lounged into the store. 

“Hello, Doctor,” greeted the druggist. “Here 
are a couple of fellows that have been investigating 
the water up at Pearcy’s. They’ve found lead in it. 
That ought to interest you. This is Dr. Gunther,” 
he introduced, turning to us. 

It was an unexpected encounter, one I imagine 
that Kennedy might have preferred to take place 
under other circumstances. But he was equal to the 
occasion. 

“We’ve been sent up here to look into the case 
for the New York Star,” Kennedy said quickly. “I 
intended to come around to see you, but you have 
saved me the trouble.” 

Dr. Gunther looked from one of us to the other. 
“Seems to me the New York papers ought to have 


THE WAR TERROR 


300 

enough to do without sending men all over the coun- 
try making news,’' he grunted. 

“Well,” drawled Kennedy quietly, “there seems 
to be a most remarkable situation up there at 
Pearcy’s and Minturn’s, too. As nearly as I can 
make out several people there are suffering from un- 
mistakable signs of lead poisoning. There are the 
pains in the stomach, the colic, and then on the gums 
is that characteristic line of plumbic sulphide, the 
distinctive mark produced by lead. There is the 
wrist-drop, the eyesight affected, the partial paraly- 
sis, the hallucinations and a condition in old Pearcy’s 
case almost bordering on insanity — to enumerate the 
symptoms that seem to be present in varying degrees 
in various persons in the two houses.” 

Gunther looked at Kennedy, as if in doubt just 
how to take him. 

“That’s what the coroner says, too — lead poison- 
ing,” put in the druggist, himself as keen as anyone 
else for a piece of local news, and evidently not 
averse to stimulating talk from Dr. Gunther, who 
had been Pearcy’s physician. 

“That all seems to be true enough,” replied Gun- 
ther at length guardedly. “I recognized that some 
time ago.” 

“Why do you think it affects each so differently?” 
asked the druggist. 

Dr. Gunther settled himselr easily back in a chair 
to speak as one having authority. “Well,” he began 
slowly, “Miss Pearcy, of course, hasn’t been living 
there much until lately. As for the others, perhaps 
this gentleman here from the Star knows that lead, 
once absorbed, may remain latent in the system and 
then make itself felt. It is like arsenic, an accumula- 
tive poison, slowly collecting in the body until the 


THE LEAD POISONER 301 

limit is reached, or until the body, becoming weak- 
ened from some other cause, gives way to it.” 

He shifted his position slowly, and went on, as if 
defending the course of action he had taken in the 
case. 

“Then, too, you know, there is an individual as 
well as family and sex susceptibility to lead. Women 
are especially liable to lead poisoning, but then per- 
haps in this case Mrs. Pearcy comes of a family that 
is very resistant. There are many factors. Per- 
sonally, I don’t think Pearcy himself was resistant. 
Perhaps Minturn was not, either. At any rate, after 
Pearcy’s death, it was I who advised Minturn to 
take the electrolysis cure in New York. I took him 
down there,” added Gunther. “Confound it, I wish 
I had stayed with him. But I always found Joseph- 
son perfectly reliable in hydrotherapy with other pa- 
tients I sent to him, and I understood that he had 
been very successful with cases sent to him by many 
physicians in the city.” 

He paused and I waited anxiously to see whether 
Kennedy would make some reference to the discov- 
ery of the strychnine salts. 

“Have you any idea how the lead poisoning could 
have been caused?” asked Kennedy instead. 

Dr. Gunther shook his head. “It is a puzzle to 
me,” he answered. “I am sure of only one thing. It 
could not be from working in lead, for it is needless 
to say that none of them worked.” 

“Food?” Craig suggested. 

The doctor considered. “I had thought of that. 
I know that many cases of lead poisoning have been 
traced to the presence of the stuff in ordinary foods, 
drugs and drinks. I have examined the foods, es- 
pecially the bread. They don’t use canned goods. 


THE WAR TERROR 


302 

I even went so far as to examine the kitchen ware 
to see if there could be anything wrong with the 
glazing. They don’t drink wines and beers, into 
which now and then the stuff seems to get.” 

“You seem to have a good grasp of the subject,” 
flattered Kennedy, as we rose to go. “I can hardly 
blame you for neglecting the water, since everyone 
here seems to be so sure of the purity of the supply.” 

Gunther said nothing. I was not surprised, for, 
at the very least, no one likes to have an outsider 
come in and put his finger directly on the raw spot. 
What more there might be to it, I could only con- 
jecture. 

We left the druggist’s and Kennedy, glancing at 
his watch, remarked: “If you will go down to the 
station, Walter, and get that package we left there, 
I shall be much obliged to you. I want to make 
just one more stop, at the office of the water com- 
pany, and I think I shall just about have time for it. 
There’s a pretty good restaurant across the street. 
Meet me there, and by that time I shall know 
whether to carry out a little plan I have outlined or 
not.” 


CHAPTER XXX 


THE ELECTROLYTIC MURDER 

We dined leisurely, which seemed strange to me, 
for it was not Kennedy’s custom to let moments fly 
uselessly when he was on a case. However, I soon 
found out why it was. He was waiting for dark- 
ness. 

As soon as the lights began to glow in the little 
stores on the main street, we sallied forth, taking 
the direction of the Pearcy and Minturn houses. 

On the way he dropped into the hardware store 
and purchased a light spade and one of the small 
pocket electric flashlights, about which he wrapped 
a piece of cardboard in such a way as to make a 
most effective dark lantern. 

We trudged along in silence, occasionally chang- 
ing from carrying the heavy package to the light 
spade. 

Both the Pearcy and Minturn houses were in 
nearly total darkness when we arrived. They set 
well back from the road and were plentifully 
shielded by shrubbery. Then, too, at night it was 
not a much frequented neighborhood. We could 
easily hear the footsteps of anyone approaching on 
the walk, and an occasional automobile gliding past 
did not worry us in the least. 

U I have calculated carefully from an examination 
of the water company’s map,” said Craig, “just 
303 


3 04 THE WAR TERROR 

where the water pipe of the two houses branches off 
from the main in the road.” 

After a measurement or two from some land- 
mark, we set to work a few feet inside, under cover 
of the bushes and the shadows, like two grave dig- 
gers. 

Kennedy had been wielding the spade vigorously 
for a few minutes when it touched something metal- 
lic. There, just beneath the frost line, we came upon 
the service pipe. 

He widened the hole, and carefully scraped off 
the damp earth that adhered to the pipe. Next he 
found a valve where he shut off the water and cut 
out a small piece of the pipe. 

“I hope they don’t suspect anything like this in 
the houses with their water cut off,” he remarked as 
he carefully split the piece open lengthwise and ex- 
amined it under the light. 

On the interior of the pipe could be seen patchy 
lumps of white which projected about an eighth of 
an inch above the internal surface. As the pipe 
dried in the warm night air, they could easily be 
brushed off as a white powder. 

“What is it — strychnine?” I asked. 

“No,” he replied, regarding it thoughtfully with 
some satisfaction. “That is lead carbonate. There 
can be no doubt that the turbidity of the water was 
due to this powder in suspension. A little dissolves 
in the water, while the scales and incrustations in 
fine particles are carried along in the current. As a 
matter of fact the amount necessary to make the wa- 
ter poisonous need not be large.” 

He applied a little instrument to the cut ends of 
the pipe. As I bent over, I could see the needle on 
its dial deflected just a bit, 


THE ELECTROLYTIC MURDER 305 

“My voltmeter,” he said, reading it, “shows that 
there is a current of about 1.8 volts passing through 
this pipe all the time.” 

“Electrolysis of water pipes!” I exclaimed, think- 
ing of statements I had heard by engineers. “That’s 
what they mean by stray or vagabond currents, isn’t 
it?” 

He had seized the lantern and was eagerly fol- 
lowing up and down the line of the water pipe. At 
last he stopped, with a low exclamation, at a point 
where an electric light wire supplying the Minturn 
cottage crossed overhead. Fastened inconspicuously 
to the trunk of a tree which served as a support for 
the wire was another wire which led down from it 
and was buried in the ground. 

Craig turned up the soft earth as fast as he could, 
until he reached the pipe at this point. There was 
the buried wire wound several times around it. 

As quickly and as neatly as he could he inserted 
a connection between the severed ends of the pipe to 
restore the flow of water to the houses, turned on 
the water and covered up the holes he had dug. 
Then he unwrapped the package which we had 
tugged about all day, and in a narrow path between 
the bushes which led to the point where the wire had 
tapped the electric light feed he placed in a shallow 
hole in the ground a peculiar apparatus. 

As nearly as I could make it out, it consisted of 
two flat platforms between which, covered over and 
projected, was a slip of paper which moved forward, 
actuated by clockwork, and pressed on by a sort of 
stylus. Then he covered it over lightly with dirt so 
that, unless anyone had been looking for it, it would 
never be noticed. 

It was late when we reached the city again, but 


3 o 6 JHE WAR TERROR 

Kennedy had one more piece of work and that de- 
volved on me. All the way down on the train he 
had been writing and rewriting something. 

“Walter,” he said, as the train pulled into the sta- 
tion, “I want that published in to-morrow’s papers.” 

I looked over what he had written. It was one 
of the most sensational stories I have ever fathered, 
beginning, “Latest of the victims of the unknown 
poisoner of whole families in Stratfield, Connecticut, 
is Miss Isabel Pearcy, whose father, Randall Pearcy, 
died last week.” 

I knew that it was a “plant” of some kind, for 
so far he had discovered no evidence that Miss 
Pearcy had been affected. What his purpose was, I 
could not guess, but I got the story printed. 

The next morning early Kennedy was quietly at 
work in the laboratory. 

“What is this treatment of lead poisoning by 
electrolysis?” I asked, now that there had come a 
lull when I might get an intelligible answer. “How 
does it work?” 

“Brand new, Walter,” replied Kennedy. “It has 
been discovered that ions will flow directly through 
the membranes.” 

“Ions?” I repeated. “What are ions?” 

“Travelers,” he answered, smiling, “so named by 
Faraday from the Greek verb, io, to go. They are 
little positive and negative charges of electricity of 
which molecules are composed. You know some be- 
lieve now that matter is really composed of electrical 
energy. I think I can explain it best by a simile I use 
with my classes. It is as though you had a ballroom 
in which the dancers in couples represent the neutral 
molecules. There are a certain number of isolated 
ladies and gentlemen — dissociated ions ” 


THE ELECTROLYTIC MURDER 307 

“Who don’t know these new dances?” I inter- 
rupted. 

“They all know this dance,” he laughed. “But, 
to be serious in the simile, suppose at one end of the 
room there is a large mirror and at the other a 
buffet with cigars and champagne. What happens to 
the dissociated ions?” 

“Well, I suppose you want me to say that the la- 
dies gather about the mirror and the men about the 
buffet.” 

“Exactly. And some of the dancing partners 
separate and follow the crowd. Well, that room 
presents a picture of what happens in an electrolytic 
solution at the moment when the electric current is 
passing through it.” 

“Thanks,” I laughed. “That was quite adequate 
to my immature understanding.” 

Kennedy continued at work, checking up and ar- 
ranging his data until the middle of the afternoon, 
when he went up to Stratfield. 

Having nothing better to do, I wandered out 
about town in the hope of running across some one 
with whom to while away the hours until Kennedy 
returned. I found out that, since yesterday, Broad- 
way had woven an entirely new background for the 
mystery. Now it was rumored that the lawyer 
Minturn himself had been on very intimate terms 
with Mrs. Pearcy. I did not pay much atten- 
tion to the rumor, for I knew that Broadway is 
constitutionally unable to believe that anybody is 
straight. 

Kennedy had commissioned me to keep in touch 
with Josephson and I finally managed to get around 
to the Baths, to find them still closed. 

As I was talking with him, a very muddy and 


308 THE WAR TERROR 

dusty car pulled up at the door and a young man 
whose face was marred by the red congested blood 
vessels that are in some a mark of dissipation burst 
in on us. 

“What — closed up yet — Joe?” he asked. 
“Haven’t they taken Minturn’s body away?” 

“Yes, it was sent up to Stratfield to-day,” replied 
the masseur, “but the coroner seems to want to 
worry me all he can.” 

“Too bad. I was up almost all last night, and 
to-day I have been out in my car — tired to death. 
Thought I might get some rest here. Where are 
you sending the boys — to the Longacre?” 

“Yes. They’ll take good care of you till I open 
up again. Hope to see you back again, then, Mr. 
Pearcy,” he added, as the young man turned and 
hurried out to his car again. “That was that young 
Pearcy, you know. Nice boy — but living the life too 
fast. What’s Kennedy doing — anything?” 

I did not like the jaunty bravado of the masseur 
which now seemed to be returning, since nothing 
definite had taken shap$. I determined that he 
should not pump me, as he evidently was trying to 
do. I had at least fulfilled Kennedy’s commission 
and felt that the sooner I left Josephson the better 
for both of us. 

I was surprised at dinner to receive a wire from 
Craig saying that he was bringing down Dr. Gun- 
ther, Mrs. Pearcy and Isabel to New York and ask- 
ing me to have Warner Pearcy and Josephson at 
the laboratory at nine o’clock. 

By strategy I managed to persuade Pearcy to 
come, and as for Josephson, he could not very well 
escape, though I saw that as long as nothing more 
had happened, he was more interested in “fixing” 


THE ELECTROLYTIC MURDER 309 

the police so that he could resume business than any- 
thing else. 

As we entered the laboratory that night, Kennedy, 
who had left his party at a downtown hotel to 
freshen up, met us each at the door. Instead of 
conducting us in front of his laboratory table, which 
was the natural way, he led us singly around through 
the narrow space back of it. 

I recall that as I followed him, I half imagined 
that the floor gave way just a bit, and there flashed 
over me, by a queer association of ideas, the recol- 
lection of having visited an amusement park not 
long before where merely stepping on an innocent- 
looking section of the flooring had resulted in a tre- 
mendous knocking and banging beneath, much to 
the delight of the lovers of slap-stick humor. This 
was serious business, however, and I quickly ban- 
ished the frivolous thought from my mind. 

“The discovery of poison, and its identification,” 
began Craig at last when we had all arrived and 
were seated about him, “often involves not only 
the use of chemistry but also a knowledge of the 
chemical effect of the poison on the body, and the 
gross as well as microscopic changes which it pro- 
duces in various tissues and organs — changes, some 
due to mere contact, others to the actual chemico- 
physiological reaction between the poison and the 
body.” 

His hand was resting on the poles of a large bat- 
tery, as he proceeded: “Every day the medical de- 
tective plays a more and more important part in the 
detection of crime, and I might say that, except in 
the case of crime complicated by a lunacy plea, his 
work has earned the respect of the courts and of de- 
tectives, while in the case of insanity the discredit 


3 io THE WAR TERROR 

is the fault rather of the law itself. The ways in 
which the doctor can be of use in untangling the 
facts in many forms of crime have become so nu- 
merous that the profession of medical detective may 
almost be called a specialty.” 

Kennedy repeated what he had already told me 
about electrolysis, then placed between the poles of 
the battery a large piece of raw beef. 

He covered the negative electrode with blotting 
paper and soaked it in a beaker near at hand. 

“This solution,” he explained, “is composed of 
potassium iodide. In this other beaker I have a 
mixture of ordinary starch.” 

He soaked the positive electrode in the starch and 
then jammed the two against the soft red meat. 
Then he applied the current. 

A few moments later he withdrew the positive 
electrode. Both it and the meat under it were blue ! 

“What has happened?” he asked. “The iodine 
ions have actually passed through the beef to the 
positive pole and the paper on the electrode. Here 
we have starch iodide.” 

It was a startling idea, this of the introduction of 
a substance by electrolysis. 

“I may say,” he resumed, “that the medical view 
of electricity is changing, due in large measure to 
the genius of the Frenchman, Dr. Leduc. The body, 
we know, is composed largely of water, with salts 
of soda and potash. It is an excellent electrolyte. 
Yet most doctors regard the introduction of sub- 
stances by the electric current as insignificant or non- 
existent. But on the contrary the introduction of 
drugs by electrolysis is regular and far from being 
insignificant may very easily bring about death. 

“That action,” he went on, looking from one of 


THE ELECTROLYTIC MURDER 31 1 

us to another, “may be therapeutic, as in the cure 
for lead poisoning by removing the lead, or it may 
be toxic — as in the case of actually introducing such 
a poison as strychnine into the body by the same 
forces that will remove the lead.” 

He paused a moment, to enforce the point which 
had already been suggested. I glanced about hastily. 
If anyone in his little audience was guilty, no one 
betrayed it, for all were following him, fascinated. 
Yet in the wildly throbbing brain of some one of 
them the guilty knowledge must be seared indelibly. 
Would the mere accusation be enough to dissociate 
the truth from that brain or would Kennedy have to 
resort to other means? 

“Some one,” he went on, in a low, tense voice, 
leaning forward, “some one who knew this effect 
placed strychnine salts on one of the electrodes of 
the bath which Owen Minturn was to use.” 

He did not pause. Evidently he was planning to 
let the fprce of his exposure be cumulative, until 
from its sheer momentum it carried everything be- 
fore it. 

“Walter,” he ordered quickly. “Lend me a 
hand.” 

Together we moved the laboratory table as he 
directed. 

There, in the floor, concealed by the shadow, he 
had placed the same apparatus which I had seen him 
bury in the path between the Pearcy and Minturn 
estates at Stratfield. 

We scarcely breathed. 

“This,” he explained rapidly, “is what is known 
as a kinograph — the invention of Professor Hele- 
Shaw of London. It enables me to identify a per- 
son by his or her walk. Each of you as you entered 


THE WAR TERROR 


312 

fthis room has passed over this apparatus and has 
left a different mark on the paper which registers.” 

For a moment he stopped, as if gathering strength 
for the final assault. 

“Until late this afternoon I had this kinograph 
secreted at a certain place in Stratfield. Some one 
had tampered with the leaden water pipes and the 
electric light cable. Fearful that the lead poisoning 
brought on by electrolysis might not produce its re- 
sult in the intended victim, that person took advan- 
tage of the new discoveries in electrolysis to complete 
that work by introducing the deadly strychnine dur- 
ing the very process of cure of the lead poisoning.” 

He slapped down a copy of a newspaper. “In the 
news this morning I told just enough of what I had 
discovered and colored it in such a way that I was 
sure I would arouse apprehension. I did it because 
I wanted to make the criminal revisit the real scene 
of the crime. There was a double motive now — to 
remove the evidence and to check the spread of the 
poisoning.” 

Fie reached over, tore off the paper with a quick, 
decisive motion, and laid it beside another strip, a 
little discolored by moisture, as though the damp 
earth had touched it. 

“That person, alarmed lest something in the clev- 
erly laid plot, might be discovered, went to a cer- 
tain spot to remove the traces of the diabolical work 
which were hidden there. My kinograph shows the 
footsteps, shows as plainly as if I had been present, 
the exact person who tried to obliterate the evi- 
dence.” 

An ashen pallor seemed to spread over the face 
of Miss Pearcy, as Kennedy shot out the words. 

“That person,” he emphasized, “had planned to 


THE ELECTROLYTIC MURDER 313 

put out of the way one who had brought disgrace on 
the Pearcy family. It was an act of private justice.” 

Mrs. Pearcy could stand the strain no longer. 
She had broken down and was weeping incoherently. 
I strained my ears to catch what she was murmuring. 
It was Minturn’s name, not Gunther’s, that was on 
her lips. 

“But,” cried Kennedy, raising an accusatory fin- 
ger from the kinograph tracing and pointing it like 
the finger of Fate itself, “but the self-appointed 
avenger forgot that the leaden water pipe was com- 
mon to the two houses. Old Mr. Pearcy, the 
wronged, died first. Isabel has guessed the family 
skeleton — has tried hard to shield you, but, Warner 
Pearcy, you are the murderer l” 


CHAPTER XXXI 


THE EUGENIC BRIDE 

Scandal, such as that which Kennedy unearthed 
in this Pearcy case, was never much to his liking, 
yet he seemed destined, about this period of his ca- 
reer, to have a good deal of it. 

We had scarcely finished with the indictment that 
followed the arrest of young Pearcy, when we were 
confronted by a situation which was as unique as 
it was intensely modern. 

“There’s absolutely no insanity in Eugenia’s fam- 
ily,” I heard a young man remark to Kennedy, as 
my key turned in the lock of the laboratory door. 

For a moment I hesitated about breaking in on a 
confidential conference, then reflected that, as they 
had probably already heard me at the lock, I had 
better go in and excuse myself. 

As I swung the door open, I saw a young man 
pacing up and down the laboratory nervously, too 
preoccupied even to notice the slight noise I had 
made. 

He paused in his nervous walk and faced Ken- 
nedy, his back to me. 

“Kennedy,” he said huskily, “I wouldn’t care if 
there w T as insanity in her family — for, my God! — the 
tragedy of it all now — I love her!” 

He turned, following Kennedy’s eyes in my direc- 
tion, and I saw on his face the most haggard, haunt- 
3H 


THE EUGENIC BRIDE 315 

mg look of anxiety that I had ever seen on a young 
person. 

Instantly I recognized from the pictures I had 
seen in the newspapers young Quincy Atherton, the 
last of this famous line of the family, who had at- 
tracted a great deal of attention several months 
previously by what the newspapers had called his 
search through society for a “eugenics bride,” to 
infuse new blood into the Atherton stock. 

“You need have no fear that Mr. Jameson will 
be like the other newspaper men,” reassured Craig, 
as he introduced us, mindful of the prejudice which 
the unpleasant notoriety of Atherton’s marriage had 
already engendered in his mind. 

I recalled that when I had first heard of Ather- 
ton’s “eugenic marriage,” I had instinctively felt a 
prejudice against the very idea of such cold, cal- 
culating, materialistic, scientific mating, as if one of 
the last fixed points were disappearing in the chaos 
of the social and sex upheaval. 

Now, I saw that one great fact of life must always 
remain. We might ride in hydroaeroplanes, delve 
into the very soul by psychanalysis, perhaps even run 
our machines by the internal forces of radium — even 
marry according to Galton or Mendel. But there 
would always be love, deep passionate love of the 
man for the woman, love which all the discoveries 
of science might perhaps direct a little less blindly, 
but the consuming flame of which not all the cold- 
ness of science could ever quench. No tampering 
with the roots of human nature could ever change 
the roots. 

I must say that I rather liked young Atherton. 
He had a frank, open face, the most prominent 
feature of which was his somewhat aristocratic nose. 


6 THE WAR TERROR 

Otherwise he impressed one as being the victim of 
heredity in faults, if at all serious, against which he 
was struggling heroically. 

It was a most pathetic story which he told, a story 
of how his family had degenerated from the strong 
stock of his ancestors until he was the last of the 
line. He told of his education, how he had fallen, 
a rather wild youth bent in the footsteps of his 
father who had been a notoriously good clubfellow, 
under the influence of a college professor, Dr. 
Crafts, a classmate of his father’s, of how the pro- 
fessor had carefully and persistently fostered in him 
an idea that had completely changed him. 

“Crafts always said it was a case of eugenics 
against euthenics,” remarked Atherton, “of birth 
against environment. He would tell me over and 
over that birth gave me the clay, and it wasn’t such 
bad clay after all, but that environment would shape 
the vessel.” 

Then Atherton launched into a description of how 
he had striven to find a girl who had the strong 
qualities his family germ plasm seemed to have lost, 
mainly, I gathered, resistance to a taint much like 
manic depressive insanity. And as he talked, it was 
borne in on me that, after all, contrary to my first 
prejudice, there was nothing very romantic indeed 
about disregarding the plain teachings of science 
on the subject of marriage and one’s children. 

In his search for a bride, Dr. Crafts, who had 
founded a sort of Eugenics Bureau, had come to ad- 
vise him. Others may have looked up their brides 
in Bradstreet’s, or at least the Social Register. 
Atherton had gone higher, had been overjoyed to 
find that a girl he had met in the West, Eugenia 
Gilman, measured up to what his friend told him 


THE EUGENIC BRIDE 317 

were the latest teachings of science. He had been 
overjoyed because, long before Crafts had told him, 
he had found out that he loved her deeply. 

“And now,” he went on, half choking with emo- 
tion, “she is apparently suffering from just the same 
sort of depression as I myself might suffer from if 
the recessive trait became active.” 

“What do you mean, for instance?” asked Craig. 

“Well, for one thing, she has the delusion that 
my relatives are persecuting her.” 

“Persecuting her?” repeated Craig, stifling the 
remark that that was not in itself a new thing in this 
or any other family. “How?” 

“Oh, making her feel that, after all, it is Ather- 
ton family rather than Gilman health that counts — 
little remarks that when our baby is born, they hope 
it will resemble Quincy rather than Eugenia, and all 
that sort of thing, only worse and more cutting, until 
the thing has begun to prey on her mind.” 

“I see,” remarked Kennedy thoughtfully. “But 
don’t you think this is a case for a — a doctor, rather 
than a detective?” 

Atherton glanced up quickly. “Kennedy,” he an- 
swered slowly, “where millions of dollars are in- 
volved, no one can guess to what lengths the human 
mind will go — no one, except you.” 

“Then you have suspicions of something worse?” 

“Y-yes — but nothing definite. Now, take this case. 
If I should die childless, after my wife, the Ather- 
ton estate would descend to my nearest relative, 
Burroughs Atherton, a cousin.” 

“Unless you willed it to ” 

“I have already drawn a will,” he interrupted, 
“and in case I survive Eugenia and die childless, the 
money goes to the founding of a larger Eugenics 


3 i8 THE WAR TERROR 

Bureau, to prevent in the future, as much as possi- 
ble, tragedies such as this of which I find myself a 
part. If the case is reversed, Eugenia will get her 
third and the remainder will go to the Bureau or 
the Foundation, as I call the new venture. But,” 
and here young Atherton leaned forward and fixed 
his large eyes keenly on us, “Burroughs might break 
the will. He might show that I was of unsound 
mind, or that Eugenia was, too.” 

“Are there no other relatives?” 

“Burroughs is the nearest,” he replied, then 
added frankly, “I have a second cousin, a young 
lady named Edith Atherton, with whom both Bur- 
roughs and I used to be very friendly.” 

It was evident from the way he spoke that he 
had thought a great deal about Edith Atherton, and 
still thought well of her. 

“Your wife thinks it is Burroughs who is perse- 
cuting her?” asked Kennedy. 

Atherton shrugged his shoulders. 

“Does she get along badly with Edith? She 
knows her I presume?” 

“Of course. The fact is that since the death of 
her mother, Edith has been living with us. She is 
a splendid girl, and all alone in the world now, and I 
had hopes that in New York she might meet some 
one and marry well.” 

Kennedy was looking squarely at Atherton, won- 
dering whether he might ask a question without 
seeming impertinent. Atherton caught the look, 
read it, and answered quite frankly, “To tell the 
truth, I suppose I might have married Edith, before 
I met Eugenia, if Professor Crafts had not dis- 
suaded me. But it wouldn’t have been real love — 
nor wise. You know,” he went on more frankly, 


THE EUGENIC BRIDE 319 

now that the first hesitation was over and he realized 
that if he were to gain anything at all by Kennedy’s 
services, there must be the utmost candor between 
them, “you know cousins may marry if the stocks are 
known to be strong. But if there is a defect, it is 
almost sure to be intensified. And so I — I gave up 
the idea — never had it, in fact, so strongly as to pro- 
pose to her. And when I met Eugenia all the Ather- 
tons on the family tree couldn’t have bucked up 
against the combination.” 

He was deadly in earnest as he arose from the 
chair into which he had dropped after I came in. 

“Oh, it’s terrible- — this haunting fear, this obses- 
sion that I have had, that, in spite of all I have tried 
to do, some one, somehow, will defeat me. Then 
comes the situation, just at a time when Eugenia and 
I feel that we have won against Fate, and she in 
particular needs all the consideration and care in 
the world — and — and I am defeated.” 

Atherton was again pacing the laboratory. 

“I have my car waiting outside,” he pleaded. “I 
wish you would go with me to see Eugenia — now.” 

It was impossible to resist him. Kennedy rose 
and I followed, not without a trace of misgiving. 

The Atherton mansion was one of the old houses 
of the city, a somber stone dwelling with a garden 
about it on a downtown square, on which business 
was already encroaching. We were admitted by a 
servant who seemed to walk over the polished floors 
with stealthy step as if there was something sacred 
about even the Atherton silence. As we waited in 
a high-ceilinged drawing-room with exquisite old 
tapestries on the walls, I could not help feeling my- 
self the influence of wealth and birth that seemed to 
cry out from every object of art in the house. 


THE WAR TERROR 


320 

On the longer wall of the room, I saw a group of 
paintings. One, I noted especially, must have been 
Atherton’s ancestor, the founder of the line. There 
was the same nose in Atherton, for instance, a strik- 
ing instance of heredity. I studied the face care- 
fully. There was every element of strength in it, 
and I thought instinctively that, whatever might 
have been the effects of in-breeding and bad alli- 
ances, there must still be some of that strength left 
in the present descendant of the house of Ather- 
ton. The more I thought about the house, the 
portrait, the whole case, the more unable was I to 
get out of my head a feeling that though I had 
not been in such a position before, I had at least 
read or heard something of which it vaguely re- 
minded me. 

Eugenia Atherton was reclining listlessly in her 
room in a deep leather easy chair, when Atherton 
took us up at last. She did not rise to greet us, but 
I noted that she was attired in what Kennedy once 
called, as we strolled up the Avenue, “the expensive 
sloppiness of the present styles.” In her case the 
looseness with which her clothes hung was exag- 
gerated by the lack of energy with which she wore 
them. 

She had been a beautiful girl, I knew. In fact, 
one could see that she must have been. Now, how- 
ever, she showed marks of change. Her eyes were 
large, and protruding, not with the fire of passion 
which is often associated with large eyes, but dully, 
set in a puffy face, a trifle florid. Her hands seemed, 
when she moved them, to shake with an involuntary 
tremor, and in spite of the fact that one almost could 
feel that her heart and lungs were speeding with 
energy, she had lost weight and no longer had the 


THE EUGENIC BRIDE 321 

full, rounded figure of health. Her manner showed 
severe mental disturbance, indifference, depression, a 
distressing deterioration. All her attractive Western 
breeziness was gone. One felt the tragedy of it 
only too keenly. 

“I have asked Professor Kennedy, a specialist, to 
call, my dear,” said Atherton gently, without men- 
tioning what the specialty was. 

“Another one?” she queried languorously. 

There was a colorless indifference in the tone 
which was almost tragic. She said the words slowly 
and deliberately, as though even her mind worked 
that way. 

From the first, I saw that Kennedy had been ob- 
serving Eugenia Atherton keenly. And in the role 
of specialist in nervous diseases he was enabled to 
do what otherwise would have been difficult to ac- 
complish. 

Gradually, from observing her mental condition 
of indifference which made conversation extremely 
difficult as well as profitless, he began to consider her 
physical condition. I knew him well enough to 
gather from his manner alone as he went on that 
what had seemed at the start to be merely a curious 
case, because it concerned the Athertons, was loom- 
ing up in his mind as unusual in itself, and was in- 
teresting him because it baffled him. 

Craig had just discovered that her pulse was ab- 
normally high, and that consequently she had a high 
temperature, and was sweating profusely. 

“Would you mind turning your head, Mrs. Ather- 
ton?” he asked. 

She turned slowly, half way, her eyes fixed va- 
cantly on the floor until we could see the once strik- 
ing profile, 


322 THE WAR TERROR 

“No, all the way around, if you please,” added 
Kennedy. 

She offered no objection, not the slightest resist- 
ance. As she turned her head as far as she could, 
Kennedy quickly placed his forefinger and thumb 
gently on her throat, the once beautiful throat, now 
with skin harsh and rough. Softly he moved his 
fingers just a fraction of an inch over the so-called 
“Adam’s apple” and around it for a little distance. 

“Thank you,” he said. “Now around to the other 
side.” 

He made no other remark as he repeated the 
process, but I fancied I could tell that he had had an 
instant suspicion of something the moment he 
touched her throat. 

He rose abstractedly, bowed, and we started to 
leave the room, uncertain whether she knew or 
cared. Quincy had fixed his eyes silently on Craig, 
as if imploring him to speak, but I knew how un- 
likely that was until he had confirmed his suspicion 
to the last slightest detail. 

We were passing through a dressing room in the 
suite when we met a tall young woman, whose face I 
instantly recognized, not because I had ever seen it 
before, but because she had the Atherton nose so 
prominently developed. 

“My cousin, Edith,” introduced Quincy. 

We bowed and stood for a moment chatting. 
There seemed to be no reason why we should leave 
the suite, since Mrs. Atherton paid so little atten- 
tion to us even when we had been in the same room. 
Yet a slight movement in her room told me that in 
spite of her lethargy she seemed to know that we 
were there and to recognize who had joined us. 

Edith Atherton was a noticeable woman, a woman 


THE EUGENIC BRIDE 323 

of temperament, not beautiful exactly, but with a 
stateliness about her, an aloofness. The more I 
studied her face, with its thin sensitive lips and com- 
manding, almost imperious eyes, the more there 
seemed to be something peculiar about her. She 
was dressed very simply in black, but it was the sim- 
plicity that costs. One thing was quite evident — 
her pride in the family of Atherton. 

And as we talked, it seemed to be that she, much 
more than Eugenia in her former blooming health, 
was a part of the somber house. There came over 
me again the impression I had received before that I 
had read or heard something like this case before. 

She did not linger long, but continued her stately 
way into the room where Eugenia sat. And at once 
it flashed over me what my impression, indefinable, 
half formed, was. I could not help thinking, as I 
saw her pass, of the lady Madeline in “The Fall of 
the House of Usher.” 


CHAPTER XXXII 


THE GERM PLASM 

I REGARDED her with utter astonishment and yet 
found it impossible to account for such a feeling. I 
looked at Atherton, but on his face I could see noth- 
ing but a sort of questioning fear that only increased 
my illusion, as if he, too, had only a vague, haunting 
premonition of something terrible impending. Al- 
most I began to wonder whether the Atherton house 
might not crumble under the fierceness of a sudden 
whirlwind, while the two women in this case, one 
representing the wasted past, the other the blasted 
future, dragged Atherton down, as the whole scene 
dissolved into some ghostly tarn. It was only for a 
moment, and then I saw that the more practical Ken- 
nedy had been examining some bottles on the lady’s 
dresser before which we had paused. 

One was a plain bottle of pellets which might have 
been some homeopathic remedy. 

“Whatever it is that is the matter with Eugenia,” 
remarked Atherton, “it seems to have baffled the 
doctbrs so far.” 

Kennedy said nothing, but I saw that he had 
clumsily overturned the bottle and absently set it up 
again, as though his thoughts were far away. Yet 
with a cleverness that would have done credit to a 
professor of legerdemain he had managed to ex- 
tract two or three of the pellets. 

3 2 4 


THE GERM PLASM 


325 

“Yes,” he said, as he moved slowly toward the 
staircase in the wide hall, “most baffling.” 

Atherton was plainly disappointed. Evidently he 
had expected Kennedy to arrive at the truth and set 
matters right by some sudden piece of wizardry, 
and it was with difficulty that he refrained from say- 
ing so. 

“I should like to meet Burroughs Atherton,” he 
remarked as we stood in the wide hall on the first 
floor of the big house. “Is he a frequent visitor?” 

“Not frequent,” hastened Quincy Atherton, in a 
tone that showed some satisfaction in saying it. 
“However, by a lucky chance he has promised to 
call to-night — a mere courtesy, I believe, to Edith, 
since she has come to town on a visit.” 

“Good !” exclaimed Kennedy. “Now, I leave it to 
you, Atherton, to make some plausible excuse for 
our meeting Burroughs here.” 

“I can do that easily.” 

“I shall be here early,” pursued Kennedy as we 
left. 

Back again in the laboratory to which Atherton 
insisted on accompanying us in his car, Kennedy 
busied himself for a few minutes, crushing up one 
of the tablets and trying one or two reactions with 
some of the powder dissolved, while I looked on 
curiously. 

“Craig,” I remarked contemplatively, after a 
while, “how about Atherton himself? Is he really 
free from the — er — stigmata, I suppose you call 
them, of insanity?” 

“You mean, may the whole trouble lie with him?” 
he asked, not looking up from his work. 

“Yes — and the effect on her be a sort of reflex, 
say, perhaps the effect of having sold herself for 


326 THE WAR TERROR 

money and position. In other words, does she, did 
she, ever love him? We don’t know that. Might 
it not prey on her mind, until with the kind help of 
his precious relatives even Nature herself could not 
stand the strain — especially in the delicate condition 
in which she now finds herself?” 

I must admit that I felt the utmost sympathy for 
the poor girl whom we had just seen such a pitiable 
wreck. 

Kennedy closed his eyes tightly until they wrinkled 
at the corners. 

“I think I have found out the immediate cause of 
her trouble,” he said simply, ignoring my sugges- 
tion. 

“What is it?” I asked eagerly. 

“I can’t imagine how they could have failed to 
guess it, except that they never would have sus- 
pected to look for anything resembling exophthal- 
mic goiter in a person of her stamina,” he answered, 
pronouncing the word slowly. “You have heard of 
the thyroid gland in the neck?” 

“Yes?” I queried, for it was a mere name to me. 

“It is a vascular organ lying under the chin with 
a sort of little isthmus joining the two parts on 
either side of the windpipe,” he explained. “Well, 
when there is any deterioration of those glands 
through any cause, all sorts of complications may 
arise. The thyroid is one of the so-called ductless 
glands, like the adrenals above the kidneys, the 
pineal gland and the pituitary body. In normal ac- 
tivity they discharge into the blood substances which 
are carried to other organs and are now known to 
be absolutely essential. 

“The substances which they secrete are called 
‘hormones’ — those chemical messengers, as it were, 


THE GERM PLASM 


327 

by which many of the processes of the body are regu- 
lated. In fact, no field of experimental physiology 
is richer in interest than this. It seems that few 
ordinary drugs approach in their effects on metabol- 
ism the hormones of the thyroid. In excess they 
produce such diseases as exophthalmic goiter, and 
goiter is concerned with the enlargement of the 
glands and surrounding tissues beyond anything like 
natural size. Then, too, a defect in the glands causes 
the disease known as myxedema in adults and cre- 
tinism in children. Most of all, the gland seems to 
tell on the germ plasm of the body, especially in 
women.” 

I listened in amazement, hardly knowing what to 
think. Did his discovery portend something diaboli- 
cal, or was it purely a defect in nature which Dr. 
Crafts of the Eugenics Bureau had overlooked? 

“One thing at a time, Walter,” cautioned Ken- 
nedy, when I put the question to him, scarcely ex- 
pecting an answer yet. 

That night in the old Atherton mansion, while we 
waited for Borroughs to arrive, Kennedy, whose fer- 
tile mind had contrived to kill at least two birds 
with one stone, busied himself by cutting in on the 
regular telephone line and placing an extension of 
his own in a closet in the library. To it he attached 
an ordinary telephone receiver fastened to an ar- 
rangement which was strange to me. As nearly as 
I can describe it, between the diaphragm of the regu- 
lar receiver and a brownish cylinder, like that of a 
phonograph, and with a needle attached, was fitted 
an air chamber of small size, open to the outer air 
by a small hole to prevent compression. 

The work was completed expeditiously, but we had 
plenty of time to wait, for Borroughs Atherton evi- 


328 THE WAR TERROR 

dently did not consider that an evening had fairly 
begun until nine o’clock. 

He arrived at last, however, rather tall, slight 
of figure, narrow-shouldered, designed for the latest 
models of imported fabrics. It was evident merely 
by shaking hands with Burroughs that he thought 
both the Athertons and the Burroughses just the 
right combination. He was one of those few men 
against whom I conceive an instinctive prejudice, 
and in this case I felt positive that, whatever faults 
the Atherton germ plasm might contain, he had com- 
bined others from the determiners of that of the 
other ancestors he boasted. I could not help feel- 
ing that Eugenia Atherton was in about as unpleas- 
ant an atmosphere of social miasma as could be im- 
agined. 

Burroughs asked politely after Eugenia, but it 
was evident that the real deference was paid to 
Edith Atherton and that they got along very well 
together. Burroughs excused himself early, and we 
followed soon after. 

“I think I shall go around to this Eugenics Bu- 
reau of Dr. Crafts,” remarked Kennedy the next 
day, after a night’s consideration of the case. 

The Bureau occupied a floor in a dwelling house 
uptown which had been remodeled into an office 
building. Huge cabinets were stacked up against 
the walls, and in them several women were engaged 
in filing blanks and card records. Another part of 
the office consisted of an extensive library on eu- 
genic subjects. 

Dr. Crafts, in charge of the work, whom we 
found in a little office in front partitioned off by 
ground glass, was an old man with an alert, vig- 
orous mind on whom the effects of plain living and 


THE GERM PLASM 329 

high thinking showed plainly. He was looking over 
some new blanks with a young woman who seemed 
to be working with him, directing the force of clerks 
as well as the “field workers,” who were gathering 
the vast mass of information which was being stud- 
ied. As we introduced ourselves, he introduced Dr. 
Maude Schofield. 

“I have heard of your eugenic marriage contests,” 
began Kennedy, “more especially of what you have 
done for Mr. Quincy Atherton.” 

“Well — not exactly a contest in that case, at 
least,” corrected Dr. Crafts with an indulgent smile 
for a layman. 

“No,” put in Dr. Schofield, “the Eugenics Bu- 
reau isn’t a human stock farm.” 

“I see,” commented Kennedy, who had no such 
idea, anyhow. He was always lenient with anyone 
who had what he often referred to as the “illusion 
of grandeur.” 

“We advise people sometimes regarding the de- 
sirability or the undesirability of marriage,” molli- 
fied Dr. Crafts. “This is a sort of clearing house 
for scientific race investigation and improvement.” 

“At any rate,” persisted Kennedy, “after inves- 
tigation, I understand, you advised in favor of his 
marriage with Miss Gilman.” 

“Yes, Eugenia Gilman seemed to measure well up 
to the requirements in such a match. Her branch 
of the Gilmans has always been of the vigorous, 
pioneering type, as well as intellectual. Her father 
was one of the foremost thinkers in the West; in 
fact had long held ideas on the betterment of the 
race. You see that in the choice of a name for his 
daughter — Eugenia.” 

“Then there were no recessive traits in her fam- 


22 


330 THE WAR TERROR 

ily,” asked Kennedy quickly, “of the same sort that 
you find in the Athertons?” 

“None that we could discover,” answered Dr. 
Crafts positively. 

“No epilepsy, no insanity of any form?” 

“No. Of course, you understand that almost no 
one is what might be called eugenically perfect. 
Strictly speaking, perhaps not over two or three per 
cent, of the population even approximates that stand- 
ard. But it seemed to me that in everything essen- 
tial in this case, weakness latent in Atherton was 
mating strength in Eugenia and the same way on her 
part for an entirely different set of traits.” 

“Still,” considered Kennedy, “there might have 
been something latent in her family germ plasm back 
of the time through which you could trace it?” 

Dr. Crafts shrugged his shoulders. “There often 
is, I must admit, something we can’t discover because 
it lies too far back in the past.” 

“And likely to crop out after skipping genera- 
tions,” put in Maude Schofield. 

She evidently did not take the same liberal view 
in the practical application of the matter expressed 
by her chief. I set it down to the ardor of youth 
in a new cause, which often becomes the saner con- 
servatism of maturity. 

“Of course, you found it much easier than usual 
to get at the true family history of the Athertons,” 
pursued Kennedy. “It is an old family and has 
been prominent for generations.” 

“Naturally,” assented Dr. Crafts. 

“You know Burroughs Atherton on both lines of 
descent?” asked Kennedy, changing the subject 
abruptly. 

“Yes, fairly well,” answered Crafts. 


THE GERM PLASM 331 

“Now, for example,” went on Craig, “how would 
you advise him to marry?” 

I saw at once that he was taking this subterfuge 
as a way of securing information which might other- 
wise have been withheld if asked for directly. 
Maude Schofield also saw it, I fancied, but this time 
said nothing. 

“They had a grandfather who was a manic de- 
pressive on the Atherton side,” said Crafts slowly. 
“Now, no attempt has ever been made to breed that 
defect out of the family. In the case of Burroughs, 
it is perhaps a little worse, for the other side of his 
ancestry is not free from the taint of alcoholism.” 

“And Edith Atherton?” 

“The same way. They both carry it. I won’t go 
into the Mendelian law on the subject. We are 
clearing up much that is obscure. But as to Bur- 
roughs, he should marry, if at all, some one without 
that particular taint. I believe that in a few genera- 
tions by proper mating most taints might be bred 
out of families.” 

Maude Schofield evidently did not agree with Dr. 
Crafts on some point, and, noticing it, he seemed 
to be in the position both of explaining his conten- 
tion to us and of defending it before his fair as- 
sistant. 

“It is my opinion, as far as I have gone with the 
data,” he added, “that there is hope for many of 
those whose family history shows certain nervous 
taints. A sweeping prohibition of such marriages 
would be futile, perhaps injurious. It is necessary 
that the mating be carefully made, however, to pre- 
vent intensifying the taint. You see, though I am a 
eugenist I am not an extremist.” 

He paused, then resumed argumentatively: 


332 THE WAR TERROR 

“Then there are other questions, too, like that of 
genius with its close relation to manic depressive 
insanity. Also, there is decrease enough in the birth 
rate, without adding an excuse for it. No, that a 
young man like Atherton should take the subject 
seriously, instead of spending his time in wild dissi- 
pation, like his father, is certainly creditable, argues 
in itself that there still must exist some strength in 
his stock. 

“And, of course,” he continued warmly, “when I 
say that weakness in a trait — not in all traits, by 
any means — should marry strength and that strength 
may marry weakness, I don’t mean that all matches 
should be like that If we are too strict we may 
prohibit practically all marriages. In Atherton’s 
case, as in many another, I felt that I should inter- 
pret the rule as sanely as possible.” 

“Strength should marry strength, and weakness 
should never marry,” persisted Maude Schofield. 
“Nothing short of that will satisfy the true eugen- 
ist.” 

“Theoretically,” objected Crafts. “But Atherton 
was going to marry, anyhow. The only thing for 
me to do was to lay down a rule which he might 
follow safely. Besides, any other rule meant sure 
disaster.” 

“It was the only rule with half a chance of being 
followed and at any rate,” drawled Kennedy, as the 
eugenists wrangled, “what difference does it make 
in this case? As nearly as I can make out it is Mrs. 
Atherton herself, not Atherton, who is ill.” 

Maude Schofield had risen to return to supervis- 
ing a clerk who needed help. She left us, still un- 
convinced. 

. “That is a very clever girl,” remarked Kennedy as 


THE GERM PLASM 


333 : 

she shut the door and he scanned Dr. Crafts’ face 
dosely. 

“Very,” assented the Doctor. 

“The Schofields come of good stock?” hazarded 
Kennedy. 

“Very,” assented Dr. Crafts again. 

Evidently he did not care to talk about individual 
cases, and I felt that the rule was a safe one, to pre- 
vent Eugenics from becoming Gossip. Kennedy 
thanked him for his courtesy, and we left apparently 
on the best of terms both with Crafts and his as- 
sistant. 


CHAPTER XXXIII 


THE SEX CONTROL 

I did not see Kennedy again that day until late in 
the afternoon, when he came into the laboratory car- 
rying a small package. 

“Theory is one thing, practice is another,” he re- 
marked, as he threw his hat and coat into a chair. 

“Which means — in this case?” I prompted. 

“Why, I have just seen Atherton. Of course I 
didn’t repeat our conversation of this morning, and 
I’m glad I didn’t. He almost makes me think you 
are right, Walter. He’s obsessed by the fear of 
Burroughs. Why, he even told me that Burroughs 
had gone so far as to take a leaf out of his book, so 
to speak, get in touch with the Eugenics Bureau as if 
to follow his footsteps, but really to pump them 
about Atherton himself. Atherton says it’s all Bur- 
roughs’ plan to break his will and that the fellow 
has even gone so far as to cultivate the acquaintance 
of Maude Schofield, knowing that he will get no 
sympathy from Crafts.” 

“First it was Edith Atherton, now it is Maude 
Schofield that he hitches up with Burroughs,” I com- 
mented. “Seems to me that I have heard that one 
of the first signs of insanity is belief that everyone 
about the victim is conspiring against him. I haven’t 
any love for any of them — but I must be fair.” 

“Well,” said Kennedy, unwrapping the package, 

334 


THE SEX CONTROL 


335 ] 

“there is this much to it. Atherton says Burroughs 
and Maude Schofield have been seen together more 
than once — and not at intellectual gatherings either. 
Burroughs is a fascinating fellow to a woman, if he 
wants to be, and the Schofields are at least the so- 
cial equals of the Burroughs. Besides,” he added, 
“in spite of eugenics, feminism, and all the rest — sex, 
like murder, will out. There’s no use having any 
false ideas about that. Atherton may see red — but, 
then, he was quite excited.” 

“Over what?” I asked, perplexed more than ever 
at the turn of events. 

“He called me up in the first place. ‘Can’t you 
do something?’ he implored. ‘Eugenia is getting 
worse all the time.’ She is, too. I saw her for a 
moment, and she was even more vacant than yester- 
day.” 

The thought of the poor girl in the big house 
somehow brought over me again my first impres- 
sion of Poe’s story. 

Kennedy had unwrapped the package which 
proved to be the instrument he had left in the closet 
at Atherton’s. It was, as I had observed, like an 
ordinary wax cylinder phonograph record. 

“You see,” explained Kennedy, “it is nothing more 
than a successful application at last of, say, one of 
those phonographs you have seen in offices for tak- 
ing dictation, placed so that the feebler vibrations of 
the telephone affect it. Let us see what we have 
here.” 

He had attached the cylinder to an ordinary pho- 
nograph, and after a number of routine calls had 
been run off, he came to this, in voices which we 
could only guess at but not recognize, for no names 
were used. 


THE WAR TERROR 


336 

“How is she to-day ?” 

“Not much changed — perhaps not so well.” 

“It’s all right, though. That is natural. It is 
working well. I think you might increase the dose, 
one tablet.” 

“You’re sure it is all right?” (with anxiety). 

“Oh, positively — it has been done in Europe.” 

“I hope so. It must be a boy — and an Atherton” 

“Never fear.” 

That was all. Who was it? The voices were un- 
familiar to me, especially when repeated mechani- 
cally. Besides they may have been disguised. At 
any rate we had learned something. Some one was 
trying to control the sex of the expected Atherton 
heir. But that was about all. Who it was, we knew 
no better, apparently, than before. 

Kennedy did not seem to care much, however. 
Quickly he got Quincy Atherton on the wire and 
arranged for Atherton to have Dr. Crafts meet us 
at the house at eight o’clock that night, with Maude 
Schofield. Then he asked that Burroughs Atherton 
be there, and of course, Edith and Eugenia. 

We arrived almost as the clock was striking, Ken- 
nedy carrying the phonograph record and another 
blank record, and a boy tugging along the machine 
itself. Dr. Crafts was the next to appear, expressing 
surprise at meeting us, and I thought a bit annoyed, 
for he mentioned that it had been with reluctance 
that he had had to give up some work he had 
planned for the evening. Maude Schofield, who 
came with him, looked bored. Knowing that she 
disapproved of the match with Eugenia, I was not 
surprised. Burroughs arrived, not as late as I had 
expected, but almost insultingly supercilious at find- 
ing so many strangers at what Atherton had told 


THE SEX CONTROL 


337 




him was to be a family conference, in order to get 
him to come. Last of all Edith Atherton descended 
the staircase, the personification of dignity, bowing 
to each with a studied graciousness, as if distributing 
largess, but greeting Burroughs with an air that 
plainly showed how much thicker was blood than wa- 
ter. Eugenia remained upstairs, lethargic, almost 
cataleptic, as Atherton told us when we arrived. 

“I trust you are not going to keep us long, 
Quincy,” yawned Burroughs, looking ostentatiously 
at his watch. 

“Only long enough for Professor Kennedy to say 
a few words about Eugenia,” replied Atherton ner- 
vously, bowing to Kennedy. 

Kennedy cleared his throat slowly. 

“I don’t know that I have much to say,” began 
Kennedy, still seated. “I suppose Mr. Atherton has 
told you I have been much interested in the peculiar 
state of health of Mrs. Atherton?” 

No one spoke, and he went on easily: “There is 
something I might say, however, about the — er — 
what I call the chemistry of insanity. Among the 
present wonders of science, as you doubtless know, 
none stirs the imagination so powerfully as the doc- 
trine that at least some forms of insanity are the re- 
sult of chemical changes in the blood. For instance, 
ill temper, intoxication, many things are due to 
chemical changes in the blood acting on the brain. 

“Go further back. Take typhoid fever with its 
delirium, influenza with its suicide mania. All due 
to toxins — poisons. Chemistry — chemistry — all of 
them chemistry.” 

Craig had begun carefully so as to win their at- 
tention. He had it as he went on: “Do we not 
brew within ourselves poisons which enter the cir* 


338 THE WAR TERROR 

culation and pervade the system? A sudden emotion 
upsets the chemistry of the body. Or poisonous 
food. Or a drug. It affects many things. But we 
could never have had this chemical theory unless we 
had had physiological chemistry — and some carry it 
so far as to say that the brain secretes thought, just 
as the liver secretes bile, that thoughts are the re* 
suits of molecular changes.” 

“You are, then, a materialist of the most pro- 
nounced type,” asserted Dr. Crafts. 

Kennedy had been reaching over to a table, toy- 
ing with the phonograph. As Crafts spoke he 
moved a key, and I suspected that it was in order 
to catch the words. 

“Not entirely,” he said. “No more than some 
eugenists.” 

“In our field,” put in Maude Schofield, “I might 
express the thought this way — the sociologist has 
had his day; now it is the biologist, the eugenist.” 

“That expresses it,” commented Kennedy, still 
tinkering with the record. “Yet it does not mean 
that because we have new ideas, they abolish the 
old. Often they only explain, amplify, supplement. 
For instance,” he said, looking up at Edith Ather- 
ton, “take heredity. Our knowledge seems new, but 
is it? Marriages have always been dictated by a 
sort of eugenics. Society is founded on that.” 

“Precisely,” she answered. “The best families 
have always married into the best families. These 
modern notions simply recognize what the best peo- 
ple have always thought — except that it seems to 
me,” she added with a sarcastic flourish, “people of 
no ancestry are trying to force themselves in among 
their betters.” 

“Very true, Edith,” drawled Burroughs, “but we 


THE SEX CONTROL 


339 

did not have to be brought here by Quincy to learn 
that” 

Quincy Atherton had risen during the discussion 
and had approached Kennedy. Craig continued to 
finger the phonograph abstractedly, as he looked up. 

“About this — this insanity theory,” he whispered 
eagerly. ‘‘You think that the suspicions I had have 
been justified?” 

I had been watching Kennedy’s hand. As soon as 
Atherton had started to speak, I saw that Craig, as 
before, had moved the key, evidently registering 
what he said, as he had in the case of the others dur- 
ing the discussion. 

“One moment, Atherton,” he whispered in reply, 
“I’m coming to that. Now,” he resumed aloud, 
“there is a disease, or a number of diseases, to which 
my remarks about insanity a while ago might apply 
very well. They have been known for some time to 
arise from various affections of the thyroid glands 
in the neck. These glands, strange to say, if acted 
on in certain ways can cause degenerations of mind 
and body, which are well known, but in spite of much 
study are still very little understood. For example, 
there is a definite interrelation between them and 
sex — especially in woman.” 

Rapidly he sketched what he had already told me 
of the thyroid and the hormones. “These hor- 
mones,” added Kennedy, “are closely related to 
many reactions in the body, such as even the 
mother’s secretion of milk at the proper time and 
then only. That and many other functions are due 
to the presence and character of these chemical se- 
cretions from the thyroid and other ductless glands. 
It is a fascinating study. For we know that any- 
thing that will upset — reduce or increase — the hor- 


340 


THE WAR TERROR 

mones is a matter intimately concerned with health. 
Such changes,” he said earnestly, leaning forward, 
“might be aimed directly at the very heart of what 
otherwise would be a true eugenic marriage. It is 
even possible that loss of sex itself might be made 
to follow deep changes of the thyroid.” 

He stopped a moment. Even if he had accom- 
plished nothing else he had struck a note which had 
caused the Athertons to forget their former super- 
ciliousness. 

“If there is an oversupply of thyroid hormones,” 
continued Craig, “that excess will produce many 
changes, for instance a condition very much like 
exophthalmic goiter. And,” he said, straightening 
up, “I find that Eugenia Atherton has within her 
blood an undue proportion of these thyroid hor- 
mones. Now, is it overfunction of the glands, hyper- 
secretion — or is it something else?” 

No one moved as Kennedy skillfully led his dis- 
closure along step by step. 

“That question,” he began again slowly, shifting 
his position in the chair, “raises in my mind, at least, 
a question which has often occurred to me before. 
Is it possible for a person, taking advantage of the 
scientific knowledge we have gained, to devise and 
successfully execute a murder without fear of discov- 
ery? In other words, can a person be removed with 
that technical nicety of detail which will leave no 
clue and will be set down as something entirely natu- 
ral, though unfortunate?” 

It was a terrible idea he was framing, and he 
dwelt on it so that we might accept it at its full 
value. “As one doctor has said,” he added, “al- 
though toxicologists and chemists have not always 
possessed infallible tests for practical use, it is at 


THE SEX CONTROL 


34i 

present a pretty certain observation that every poi- 
son leaves its mark. But then on the other hand, 
students of criminology have said that a skilled phy- 
sician or surgeon is about the only person now capa- 
ble of carrying out a really scientific murder. 

“Which is true? It seems to me, at least in the 
latter case, that the very nicety of the handiwork 
must often serve as a clue in itself. The trained 
hand leaves the peculiar mark characteristic of its 
training. No matter how shrewdly the deed is 
planned, the execution of it is daily becoming a more 
and more difficult feat, thanks to our increasing 
knowledge of microbiology and pathology.” 

He had risen, as he finished the sentence, every 
eye fixed on him, as if he had been a master hypno- 
tist. 

“Perhaps,” he said, taking off the cylinder from 
the phonograph and placing on one which I knew 
was that which had lain in the library closet over 
night, “perhaps some of the things I have said will 
explain or be explained by the record on this cylin- 
der.” 

He had started the machine. So magical was 
the effect on the little audience that I am tempted to 
repeat what I had already heard, but had not my- 
self yet been able to explain: 

“How is she to-day?” 

“Not much changed — perhaps not so well.” 

“It’s all right, though. That is natural. It is 
working well. I think you might increase the dose 
one tablet.” 

“You’re sure it is all right?” 

“Oh, positively — it has been done in Europe.” 

“I hope so. It must be a boy — and an Atherton '* 

“Never fear.” 


342 THE WAR TERROR 

No one moved a muscle. If there was anyone in 
the room guilty of playing on the feelings and the 
health of an unfortunate woman, that person must 
have had superb control of his own feelings. 

“As you know,” resumed Kennedy thoughtfully, 
“there are and have been many theories of sex con- 
trol. One of the latest, but by no means the only 
one, is that it can be done by use of the extracts of 
various glands administered to the mother. I do 
not know with what scientific authority it was stated, 
but I do know that some one has recently said that 
adrenalin, derived from the suprarenal glands, in- 
duces boys to develop — cholin, from the bile of the 
liver, girls. It makes no difference — in this case. 
There may have been a show of science. But it was 
to cover up a crime. Some one has been adminis- 
tering to Eugenia Atherton tablets of thyroid ex- 
tract — ostensibly to aid her in fulfilling the dearest 
ambition of her soul — to become the mother of a 
new line of Athertons which might bear the same 
relation to the future of the country as the great 
family of the Edwards mothered by Elizabeth Tut- 
tle.” 

He was bending over the two phonograph cylin- 
ders now, rapidly comparing the new one which he 
had made and that which he had just allowed to 
reel off its astounding revelation. 

“When a voice speaks into a phonograph,” he 
said, half to himself, “its modulations received on 
the diaphragm are written by a needle point upon 
the surface of a cylinder or disk in a series of fine 
waving or zigzag lines of infinitely varying depth or 
breadth. Dr. Marage and others have been able 
to distinguish vocal sounds by the naked eye on 
phonograph records. Mr. Edison has studied them 


THE SEX CONTROL 343 

with the microscope in his world-wide search for the 
perfect voice. 

‘‘In fact, now it is possible to identify voices by 
the records they make, to get at the precise mean- 
ing of each slightest variation of the lines with 
mathematical accuracy. They can no more be falsi- 
fied than handwriting can be forged so that modern 
science cannot detect it or than typewriting can be 
concealed and attributed to another machine. The 
voice is like a finger print, a portrait parle — unes- 
capable.” 

He glanced up, then back again. “This micro- 
scope shows me,” he said, “that the voices on that 
cylinder you heard are identical with two on this 
record which I have just made in this room.” 

“Walter,” he said, motioning to me, “look.” 

I glanced into the eyepiece and saw a series of 
lines and curves, peculiar waves lapping together 
and making an appearance in some spots almost like 
tooth marks. Although I did not understand the 
details of the thing, I could readily see that by 
study one might learn as much about it as about 
loops, whorls, and arches on finger tips. 

“The upper and lower lines,” he explained, “with 
long regular waves, on that highly magnified section 
of the record, are formed by the voice with no over- 
tones. The three lines in the middle, with rhythmic 
ripples, show the overtones.” 

He paused a moment and faced us. “Many a 
person,” he resumed, “is a biotype in whom a full 
complement of what are called inhibitions never de- 
velops. That is part of your eugenics. Through- 
out life, and in spite of the best of training, that per- 
son reacts now and then to a certain stimulus di- 
rectly. A man stands high ; once a year he falls with 


344 THE WAR TERROR 

a lethal quantity of alcohol. A woman, brilliant, 
accomplished, slips away and spends a day with a 
lover as unlike herself as can be imagined. 

“The voice that interests me most on these rec- 
ords,” he went on, emphasizing the words with one 
of the cylinders which he still held, “is that of a per- 
son who has been working on the family pride of an- 
other. That person has persuaded the other to ad- 
minister to Eugenia an extract because ‘it must be a 
boy and an Atherton.’ That person is a high-class 
defective, born with a criminal instinct, reacting to 
it in an artful way. Thank God, the love of a man 
whom theoretical eugenics condemned, roused us 


A cry at the door brought us all to our feet, with 
hearts thumping as if they were bursting. 

It was Eugenia Atherton, wild-eyed, erect, staring. 

I stood aghast at the vision. Was she really to 
be the Lady Madeline in this fall of the House of 
Atherton? 

“Edith — I — I missed you. I heard voices. Is — 
is it true — what this man — says? Is my — my 
baby ” 

Quincy Atherton leaped forward and caught her 
as she reeled. Quickly Craig threw open a win- 
dow for air, and as he did so leaned far out and 
blew shrilly on a police whistle. 

The young man looked up from Eugenia, over 
whom he was bending, scarcely heeding what else 
went on about him. Still, there was no trace of 
anger on his face, in spite of the great wrong that 
had been done him. There was room for only one 
great emotion — only anxiety for the poor girl who 
had suffered so cruelly merely for taking his name. 

Kennedy saw the unspoken question in his eyes. 


THE SEX CONTROL 345 

“Eugenia is a pure normal, as Dr. Crafts told 
you,” he said gently. “A few weeks, perhaps only 
days, of treatment — the thyroid will revert to its 
normal state — and Eugenia Gilman will be the 
mother of a new house of Atherton which may 
eclipse even the proud record of the founder of 
the old.” 

“Who blew the whistle?” demanded a gruff voice 
at the door, as a tall bluecoat puffed past the scan- 
dalized butler. 

“Arrest that woman,” pointed Kennedy. “She 
is the poisoner. Either as wife of Burroughs, whom 
she fascinates and controls as she does Edith, she 
planned to break the will of Quincy or, in the other 
event, to administer the fortune as head of the Eu- 
genics Foundation after the death of Dr. Crafts, 
who would have followed Eugenia and Quincy 
Atherton.” 

I followed the direction of Kennedy’s accusing 
finger. Maude Schofield’s face betrayed more than 
even her tongue could have confessed. 


CHAPTER XXXIV 


THE BILLIONAIRE BABY 

Coming to us directly as a result of the talk that 
the Atherton case provoked was another that in- 
volved the happiness of a wealthy family to a no 
less degree. 

“I suppose you have heard of the ‘billionaire 
baby,’ Morton Hazleton III?” asked Kennedy of 
me one afternoon shortly afterward. 

The mere mention of the name conjured up in 
my mind a picture of the lusty two-year-old heir of 
two fortunes, as the feature articles in the Star had 
described that little scion of wealth — his luxurious 
nursery, his magnificent toys, his own motor car, a 
trained nurse and a detective on guard every hour 
of the day and night, every possible precaution for 
his health and safety. 

“Gad, what a lucky kid!” I exclaimed involun- 
tarily. 

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” put in Kennedy. 
“The fortune may be exaggerated. His happiness 
is, I’m sure.” 

He had pulled from his pocketbook a card and 
handed it to me. It read: “Gilbert Butler, Amer- 
ican representative, Lloyd’s.” 

“Lloyd’s?” I queried. “What has Lloyd’s to do 
with the billion-dollar baby?” 

“Very much. The child has been insured with 
346 


THE BILLIONAIRE BABY 347 

them for some fabulous sum against accident, in- 
cluding kidnaping.’’ 

“Yes?” I prompted, “sensing” a story. 

“Well, there seem to have been threats of some 
kind, I understand. Mr. Butler has called on me 
once already to-day to retain my services and is go- 
ing to — ah — there he is again now.” 

Kennedy had answered the door buzzer himself, 
and Mr. Butler, a tall, sloping-shouldered English- 
man, entered. 

“Has anything new developed?” asked Kennedy, 
introducing me. 

“I can’t say,” replied Butler dubiously. “I rather 
think we have found something that may have a 
bearing on the case. You know Miss Haversham, 
Veronica Haversham?” 

“The actress and professional beauty? Yes — at 
least I have seen her. Why?” 

“We hear that Morton Hazleton knows her, any- 
how,” remarked Butler dryly. 

“Well?” 

“Then you don’t know the gossip?” he cut in. 
“She is said to be in a sanitarium near the city. I’ll 
have to find that out for you. It’s a fast set she 
has been traveling with lately, including not only 
Hazleton, but Dr. Maudsley, the Hazleton physi- 
cian, and one or two others, who if they were poorer 
might be called desperate characters.” 

“Does Mrs. Hazleton know of — of his reputed 
intimacy?” 

“I can’t say that, either. I presume that she is 
no fool.” 

Morton Hazleton, Jr., I knew, belonged to a 
rather smart group of young men. He had been 
mentioned in several near-scandals, but as far as 


THE WAR TERROR 


348 

I knew there had been nothing quite as public and 
definite as this one. 

“Wouldn’t that account for her fears?” I asked. 

“Hardly,” replied Butler, shaking his head. “You 
see, Mrs. Hazleton is a nervous wreck, but it’s about 
the baby, and caused, she says, by her fears for its 
safety. It came to us only in a roundabout way, 
through a servant in the house who keeps us in 
touch. The curious feature is that we can seem to 
get nothing definite from her about her fears. They 
may be groundless.” 

Butler shrugged his shoulders and proceeded, 
“And they may be well-founded. But we prefer to 
run no chances in a case of this kind. The child, 
you know, is guarded in the house. In his peram- 
bulator he is doubly guarded, and when he goes out 
for his airing in the automobile, two men, the chauf- 
feur and a detective, are always there, besides his 
nurse, and often his mother or grandmother. Even 
in the nursery suite they have iron shutters which 
can be pulled down and padlocked at night and are 
constructed so as to give plenty of fresh air even to 
a scientific baby. Master Hazleton was the best sort 
of risk, we thought. But now — we don’t know.” 

“You can protect yourselves, though,” suggested 
Kennedy. 

“Yes, we have, under the policy, the right to take 
certain measures to protect ourselves in addition to 
the precautions taken by the Hazletons. We have 
added our own detective to those already on duty. 
But we — we don’t know what to guard against,” he 
concluded, perplexed. “We’d like to know — that’s 
all. It’s too big a risk.” 

“I may see Mrs. Hazleton?” mused Kennedy. 

“Yes. Under the circumstances she can scarcely 


THE BILLIONAIRE BABY 349 

refuse to see anyone we send. I’ve arranged already 
for you to meet her within an hour. Is that all 
right?” 

“Certainly.” 

The Hazleton home in winter in the city was 
uptown, facing the river. The large grounds ad- 
joining made the Hazletons quite independent of the 
daily infant parjde which one sees along Riverside 
Drive. 

As we entered the grounds we could almost feel 
the very atmosphere on guard. We did not see the 
little subject of so much concern, but I remembered 
his much heralded advent, when his grandparents 
had settled a cold million on him, just as a reward 
for coming into the world. Evidently, Morton, Sr., 
had hoped that Morton, Jr., would calm down, now 
that there was a third generation to consider. It 
seemed that he had not. I wondered if that had 
really been the occasion of the threats or whatever 
it was that had caused Mrs. Hazleton’s fears, and 
whether Veronica Haversham or any of the fast set 
around her had had anything to do with it. 

Millicent Hazleton was a very pretty little 
woman, in whom one saw instinctively the artistic 
temperament. She had been an actress, too, when 
young Morton Hazleton married her, and at first, 
at least, they had seemed very devoted to each other. 

We were admitted to see her in her own library, 
a tastefully furnished room on the second floor of 
the house, facing a garden at the side. 

“Mrs. Hazleton,” began Butler, smoothing the 
way for us, “of course you realize that we are work- 
ing in your interests. Professor Kennedy, therefore, 
in a sense, represents both of us.” 

“I am quite sure I shall be delighted to help 


350 THE WAR TERROR 

you,” she said with an absent expression, though not 
ungraciously. 

Butler, having introduced us, courteously with- 
drew. “I leave this entirely in your hands,” he said, 
as he excused himself. “If you want me to do any- 
thing more, call on me.” 

I must say that I was much surprised at the way 
she had received us. Was there in it, I wondered, 
an element of fear lest if she refused to talk sus- 
picion might grow even greater? One could see 
anxiety plainly enough on her face, as she waited 
for Kennedy to begin. 

A few moments of general conversation then fol- 
lowed. 

“Just what is it you fear?” he asked, after having 
gradually led around to the subject. “Have there 
been any threatening letters?” 

“N-no,” she hesitated, “at least nothing — defi- 
nite.” 

“Gossip?” he hinted. 

“No.” She said it so positively that I fancied it 
might be taken for a plain “Yes.” 

“Then what is it?” he asked, very deferentially, 
but firmly. 

She had been looking out at the garden. “You 
couldn’t understand,” she remarked. “No detec- 
tive ” she stopped. 

“You may be sure, Mrs. Hazleton, that I have 
not come here unnecessarily to intrude,” he reas- 
sured her. “It is exactly as Mr. Butler put it. We 
— want to help you.” 

I fancied there seemed to be something compel- 
ling about his manner. It was at once sympathetic 
and persuasive. Quite evidently he was taking 
pains to break down the prejudice in her mind which 


THE BILLIONAIRE BABY 35 r 

she had already shown toward the ordinary detec- 
tive. 

“You would think me crazy,” she remarked 
slowly. “But it is just a — a dream — just dreams.” 

I don’t think she had intended to say anything, 
for she stopped short and looked at him quickly as 
if to make sure whether he could understand. As 
for myself, I must say I felt a little skeptical. To 
my surprise, Kennedy seemed to take the statement 
at its face value. 

“Ah,” he remarked, “an anxiety dream? You 
will pardon me, Mrs. Hazleton, but before we go 
further let me tell you frankly that I am much more 
than an ordinary detective. If you will permit me, I 
should rather have you think of me as a psycholo- 
gist, a specialist, one who has come to set your mind 
at rest rather than to worm things from you by devi- 
ous methods against which you have to be on guard. 
It is just for such an unusual case as yours that Mr. 
Butler has called me in. By the way, as our inter- 
view may last a few minutes, would you mind sitting 
down? I think you’ll find it easier to talk if you 
can get your mind perfectly at rest, and for the 
moment trust to the nurse and the detectives who 
are guarding the garden, I am sure, perfectly.” 

She had been standing by the window during the 
interview and was quite evidently growing more 
and more nervous. With a bow Kennedy placed her 
at her ease on a chaise lounge. 

“Now,” he continued, standing near her, but out 
of sight, “you must try to remain free from all ex- 
ternal influences and impressions. Don’t move. 
Avoid every use of a muscle. Don’t let anything 
distract you. Just concentrate your attention on your 
psychic activities. Don’t suppress one idea as un- 


THE WAR TERROR 


352 

important, irrelevant, or nonsensical. Simply tell 
me what occurs to you in connection with the dreams 
— everything,” emphasized Craig. 

I could not help feeling surprised to find that she 
accepted Kennedy’s deferential commands, for after 
all that was what they amounted to. Almost I felt 
that she was turning to him for help, that he had 
broken down some barrier to her confidence. He 
seemed to exert a sort of hypnotic influence over her. 

“I have had cases before which involved dreams,” 
he was saying quietly and reassuringly. “Believe 
me, I do not share the world’s opinion that dreams 
are nothing. Nor yet do I believe in them supersti- 
tiously. I can readily understand how a dream can 
play a mighty part in shaping the feelings of a high- 
tensioned woman. Might I ask exactly what it is 
you fear in your dreams?” 

She sank her head back in the cushions, and for 
a moment closed her eyes, half in weariness, half 
in tacit obedience to him. 

“Oh, I have such horrible dreams,” she said at 
length, “full of anxiety and fear for Morton and 
little Morton. I can’t explain it. But they are so 
horrible.” 

Kennedy said nothing. She was talking freely at 
last. 

“Only last night,” she went on, “I dreamt that 
Morton was dead. I could see the funeral, all the 
preparations, and the procession. It seemed that 
in the crowd there was a woman. I could not see 
her face, but she had fallen down and the crowd 
was around her. Then Dr. Maudsley appeared. 
Then all of a sudden the dream changed. I thought 
I was on the sand, at the seashore, or perhaps a lake. 
I was with Junior and it seemed as if he were wadi- 


THE BILLIONAIRE BABY 353 

ing in the water, his head bobbing up and down in 
the waves. It was like a desert, too — the sand. I 
turned, and there was a lion behind me. I did not 
seem to be afraid of him, although I was so close 
that I could almost feel his shaggy mane. Yet I 
feared that he might bite Junior. The next I knew 
I was running with the child in my arms. I escaped 
— and — oh, the relief!” 

She sank back, half exhausted, half terrified still 
by the recollection. 

“In your dream when Dr. Maudsley appeared,” 
asked Kennedy, evidently interested in filling in the 
gap, “what did he do?” 

“Do?” she repeated. “In the dream? Noth- 
ing.” 

“Are you sure?” he asked, shooting a quick glance 
at her. 

“Yes. That part of the dream became indistinct 
I’m sure he did nothing, except shoulder through the 
crowd. I think he had just entered. Then that 
part of the dream seemed to end and the second part 
began.” 

Piece by piece Kennedy went over it, putting it 
together as if it were a mosaic. 

“Now, the woman. You say her face was hid- 
den?” 

She hesitated. “N-no. I saw it. But it was no 
one I knew.” 

Kennedy did not dwell on the contradiction, but 
added, “And the crowd?” 

“Strangers, too.” 

“Dr. Maudsley is your family physician?” he 
questioned. 

“Yes.” 

“Did he call — er — yesterday?” 


354 


THE WAR TERROR 


“He calls every day to supervise the nurse who 
has Junior in charge.” 

“Could one always be true to oneself in the face 
of any temptation?” he asked suddenly. 

It was a bold question. Yet such had been the 
gradual manner of his leading up to it that, before 
she knew it, she had answered quite frankly, “Yes 
— if one always thought of home and her child, I 
cannot see how one could help controlling herself.” 

She seemed to catch her breath, almost as though 
the words had escaped her before she knew it. 

“Is there anything besides your dream that alarms 
you,” he asked, changing the subject quickly, “any 
suspicion of — say the servants?” 

“No,” she said, watching him now. “But some 
time ago we caught a burglar upstairs here. He 
managed to escape. That has made me nervous. I 
didn’t think it was possible.” 

“Anything else?” 

“No,” she said positively, this time on her guard. 

Kennedy saw that she had made up her mind to 
say no more. 

“Mrs. Hazleton,” he said, rising. “I can hardly 
thank you too much for the manner in which you 
have met my questions. It will make it much easier 
for me to quiet your fears. And if anything else 
occurs to you, you may rest assured I shall violate 
no confidences in your telling me.” 

I could not help the feeling, however, that there 
was just a little air of relief on her face as we left. 


CHAPTER XXXV 


THE PSYCHANALYSIS 

“H-m,” mused Kennedy as we walked along after 
leaving the house. “There were several ‘complexes/ 
as they are called, there — the most interesting and 
important being the erotic, as usual. Now, take the 
lion in the dream, with his mane. That, I suspect, 
was Dr. Maudsley. If you are acquainted with him, 
you will recall his heavy, almost tawny beard.” 

Kennedy seemed to be revolving something in his 
mind and I did not interrupt. I had known him too 
long to feel that even a dream might not have its 
value with him. Indeed, several times before he 
had given me glimpses into the fascinating possibili- 
ties of the new psychology. 

“In spite of the work of thousands of years, lit- 
tle progress has been made in the scientific under- 
standing of dreams,” he remarked a few moments 
later. “Freud, of Vienna — you recall the name? — 
has done most, I think in that direction.” 

I recalled something of the theories of the Freud- 
ists, but said nothing. 

“It is an unpleasant feature of his philosophy,” 
he went on, “but Freud finds the conclusion irresisti- 
ble that all humanity underneath the shell is sensu- 
ous and sensual in nature. Practically all dreams be- 
tray some delight of the senses and sexual dreams 
are a large proportion. There is, according to the 

355 


356 THE WAR TERROR 

theory, always a wish hidden or expressed in a 
dream. The dream is one of three things, the open, 
the disguised or the distorted fulfillment of a wish, 
sometimes recognized, sometimes repressed. 

“Anxiety dreams are among the most interesting 
and important. Anxiety may originate in psycho- 
sexual excitement, the repressed libido, as the Freud- 
ists call it. Neurotic fear has its origin in sexual 
life and corresponds to a libido which has been 
turned away from its object and has not succeeded 
in being applied. All so-called day dreams of 
women are erotic; of men they are either ambition 
or love. 

“Often dreams, apparently harmless, turn out to 
be sinister if we take pains to interpret them. All 
have the mark of the beast. For example, there 
was that unknown woman who had fallen down and 
was surrounded by a crowd. If a woman dreams 
that, it is sexual. It can mean only a fallen woman. 
That is the symbolism. The crowd always denotes a 
secret. 

“Take also the dream of death. If there is no 
sorrow felt, then there is another cause for it. But 
if there is sorrow, then the dreamer really desires 
death or absence. I expect to have you quarrel with 
that. But read Freud, and remember that in child- 
hood death is synonymous with being away. Thus 
for example, if a girl dreams that her mother is 
dead, perhaps it means only that she wishes her 
away so that she can enjoy some pleasure that her 
strict parent, by her presence, denies. 

“Then there was that dream about the baby in 
the water. That, I think, was a dream of birth. 
You see, I asked her practically to repeat the dreams 
because there were several gaps. At such points one 


THE PSYCHANALYSIS 357 

usually finds first hesitation, then something that 
shows one of the main complexes. Perhaps the sub- 
ject grows angry at the discovery. 

“Now, from the tangle of the dream thought, I 
find that she fears that her husband is too intimate 
with another woman, and that perhaps uncon- 
sciously she has turned to Dr. Maudsley for sym- 
pathy. Dr. Maudsley, as I said, is not only bearded, 
but somewhat of a social lion. He had called on her 
the day before. Of such stuff are all dream lions 
when there is no fear. But she shows that she has 
been guilty of no wrongdoing — she escaped, and 
felt relieved.” 

“I’m glad of that,” I put in. “I don’t like these 
scandals. On the Star when I have to report them, 
I do it always under protest. I don’t know what 
your psychanalysis is going to show in the end, but 
I for one have the greatest sympathy for that poor 
little woman in the big house alone, surrounded by 
and dependent on servants, while her husband is out 
collecting scafidals.” 

“Which suggests our next step,” he said, turning 
the subject. “I hope that Butler has found out the 
retreat of Veronica Haversham.” 

We discovered Miss Haversham at last at Dr. 
Klemm’s sanitarium, up in the hills of Westchester 
County, a delightful place with a reputation for its 
rest cures. Dr. Klemm was an old friend of Ken- 
nedy’s, having had some connection with the medical 
school at the University. 

She had gone up there rather suddenly, it seemed, 
to recuperate. At least that was what was given 
out, though there seemed to be much mystery about 
her, and she was taking no treatment as far as was 
known. 


358 THE WAR TERROR 

“Who is her physician ?” asked Kennedy of Dr. 
Klemm as we sat in his luxurious office. 

“A Dr. Maudsley of the city.” 

Kennedy glanced quickly at me in time to check 
an exclamation. 

“I wonder if I could see her?” 

“Why, of course — if she is willing,” replied Dr. 
Klemm. 

“I will have to have some excuse,” ruminated 
Kennedy. “Tell her I am a specialist in nervous 
troubles from the city, have been visiting one of the 
other patients, anything.” 

Dr. Klemm pulled down a switch on a large ob- 
long oak box on his desk, asked for Miss Haver- 
sham, and waited a moment. 

“What is that?” I asked. 

“A vocaphone,” replied Kennedy. “This sani- 
tarium is quite up to date, Klemm.” 

The doctor nodded and smiled. “Yes, Kennedy,” 
he replied. “Communicating with every suite of 
rooms we have the vocaphone. I find it very con- 
venient to have these microphones, as I suppose you 
would call them, catching your words without talk- 
ing into them directly as you have to do in the tele- 
phone and then at the other end emitting the words 
without the use of an earpiece, from the box itself, 
as if from a megaphone horn. Miss Haversham, 
this is Dr. Klemm. There is a Dr. Kennedy here 
visiting another patient, a specialist from New York. 
He’d like very much to see you if you can spare a 
few minutes.” 

“Tell him to come up.” The voice seemed to 
come from the vocaphone as though she were in the 
room with us. 

Veronica Haversham was indeed wonderful, one 


THE PSYCHANALYSIS 


359 

of the leading figures in the night life of New York, 
a statuesque brunette of striking beauty, though I 
had heard of often ungovernable temper. Yet there 
was something strange about her face here. It 
seemed perhaps a little yellow, and I am sure that 
her nose had a peculiar look as if she were suffering 
from an incipient rhinitis. The pupils of her eyes 
were as fine as pin heads, her eyebrows were slightly 
elevated. Indeed, I felt that she had made no mis- 
take in taking a rest if she would preserve the beauty 
which had made her popularity so meteoric. 

“Miss Haversham,” began Kennedy, “they tell 
me that you are suffering from nervousness. Per- 
haps I can help you. At any rate it will do no harm 
to try. I know Dr. Maudsley well, and if he doesn’t 
approve — well, you may throw the treatment into 
the waste basket.” 

“I’m sure I have no reason to refuse,” she said. 
“What would you suggest?” 

“Well, first of all, there is a very simple test I’d 
like to try. You won’t find that it bothers you in 
the least — and if I can’t help you, then no harm is 
done.” 

Again I watched Kennedy as he tactfully went 
through the preparations for another kind of 
psychanalysis, placing Miss Haversham at her ease 
on a davenport in such a way that nothing would 
distract her attention. As she reclined against the 
leather pillows in the shadow it was not difficult to 
understand the lure by which she held together the 
little coterie of her intimates. One beautiful white 
arm, bare to the elbow, hung carelessly over the 
edge of the davenport, displaying a plain gold brace- 
let. 

“Now,” began Kennedy, on whom I knew the 


360 THE WAR TERROR 

charms of Miss Haversham produced a negative 
effect, although one would never have guessed it 
from his manner, “as I read off from this list of 
words, I wish that you would repeat the first thing, 
anything,' ” he emphasized, “that comes into your 
head, no matter how trivial it may seem. Don’t 
force yourself to think. Let your ideas flow natu- 
rally. It depends altogether on your paying atten- 
tion to the words and answering as quickly as you 
can — remember, the first word that comes into your 
mind. It is easy to do. We’ll call it a game,” he 
reassured. 

Kennedy handed a copy of the list to me to record 
the answers. There must have been some fifty 
words, apparently senseless, chosen at random, it 
seemed. They were: 


head 

to dance 

salt 

white 

lie 

green 

sick 

new 

child 

to fear 

w r ater 

pride 

to pray 

sad 

stork 

to sing 

ink 

money 

to marry 

false 

death 

angry 

foolish 

dear 

anxiety 

long 

needle 

despise 

to quarrel 

to kiss 

ship 

voyage 

finger 

old 

bride 

to pay 

to sin 

expensive 

family 

pure 

window 

bread 

to fall 

friend 

ridicule 

cold 

rich 

unjust 

luck 

to sleep 


“The Jung association word test is part of the 
Freud psychanalysis, also,” he whispered to me. 
“You remember we tried something based on the 
same idea once before?” 

I nodded. I had heard of the thing in conned 
tion with blood-pressure tests, but not this way. 
Kennedy called out the first word, “Head,” while 


THE PSYCHANALYSIS 361 

in his hand he held a stop watch which registered to 
one-fifth of a second. 

Quickly she replied, “Ache,” with an involuntary 
movement of her hand toward her beautiful fore- 
head. 

“Good,” exclaimed Kennedy. “You seem to 
grasp the idea better than most of my patients.” 

I had recorded the answer, he the time, and we 
found out, I recall afterward, that the time aver- 
aged something like two and two-fifths seconds. 

I thought her reply to the second word, “green,” 
was curious. It came quickly, “Envy.” 

However, I shall not attempt to give all the r& 
plies, but merely some of the most significant. There 
did not seem to be any hesitation about most of the 
words, but whenever Kennedy tried to question her 
about a word that seemed to him interesting she 
made either evasive or hesitating answers, until it be- 
came evident that in the back of her head was some 
idea which she was repressing and concealing from 
us, something that she set off with a mental “No 
Thoroughfare.” 

He had finished going through the list, and Ken- 
nedy was now studying over the answers and com- 
paring the time records. 

“Now,” he said at length, running his eye over 
the words again, “I want to repeat the performance. 
Try to remember and duplicate your first replies,” 
he said. 

Again we went through what at first had seemed 
to me to be a solemn farce, but which I began to see 
was quite important. Sometimes she would repeat 
the answer exactly as before. At other times a new 
word would occur to her. Kennedy was keen to note 
all the differences in the two lists. 

24 


362 THE WAR TERROR 

One which I recall because the incident made an 
impression on me had to do with the trio, “Death — 1 
life — inevitable.” 

“Why that?” he asked casually. 

“Haven’t you ever heard the saying, ‘One should 
let nothing which one can have escape, even if a 
little wrong is done; no opportunity should be 
missed; life is so short, death inevitable’?” 

There were several others which to Kennedy 
seemed more important, but long after we had fin- 
ished I pondered this answer. Was that her philoso- 
phy of life? Undoubtedly she would never have re- 
membered the phrase if it had not been so, at least 
in a measure. 

She had begun to show signs of weariness, and 
Kennedy quickly brought the conversation around to 
subjects of apparently a general nature, but skillfully 
contrived so as to lead the way along lines her an- 
swers had indicated. 

Kennedy had risen to go, still chatting. Almost 
unintentionally he picked up from a dressing table a 
bottle of white tablets, without a label, shaking it to 
emphasize an entirely, and I believe purposely, ir- 
relevant remark. 

“By the way,” he said, breaking off naturally, 
“what is that?” 

“Only something Dr. Maudsley had prescribed 
for me,” she answered quickly. 

As he replaced the bottle and went on with the 
thread of the conversation, I saw that in shaking the 
bottle he had abstracted a couple of the tablets be- 
fore she realized it. 

“I can’t tell you just what to do without thinking 
the case over,” he concluded, rising to go. “Yours 
is a peculiar case, Miss Haversham, baffling. I’ll 


THE PSY CHANALYSIS 


363 

have to study it over, perhaps ask Dr. Maudsley if 
I may see you again. Meanwhile, I am sure what 
he is doing is the correct thing.” 

Inasmuch as she had said nothing about what Dr. 
Maudsley was doing, I wondered whether there was 
not just a trace of suspicion in her glance at him 
from under her long dark lashes. 

“I can’t see that you have done anything,” she re- 
marked pointedly. “But then doctors are queer — 
queer.” 

That parting shot also had in it, for me, some- 
thing to ponder over. Ill fact I began to wonder if 
she might not be a great deal more clever than even 
Kennedy gave her credit for being, whether she 
might not have submitted to his tests for pure love 
of pulling the wool over his eyes. 

Downstairs again, Kennedy paused only long 
enough to speak a few words with his friend Dr. 
Klemm. 

“I suppose you have no idea what Dr. Maudsley 
has prescribed for her?” he asked carelessly. 

“Nothing, as far as I know, except rest and sim- 
ple food.” 

He seemed to hesitate, then he said under his 
voice, “I suppose you know that she is a regular 
dope fiend, seasons her cigarettes with opium, and 
all that.” 

“I guessed as much,” remarked Kennedy, “but 
how does she get it here?” 

“She doesn’t.” 

“I see,” remarked Craig, apparently weighing 
now the man before him. At length he seemed to 
decide to risk something. 

“Klemm,” he said, “I wish you would do some- 
thing for me. I see you have the vocaphone here. 


364 THE WAR TERROR 

Now if — say Hazleton — should call — will you lis- 
ten in on that vocaphone for me?” 

Dr. Klemm looked squarely at him. 

“Kennedy,” he said, “it’s unprofessional, but ” 

“So it is to let her be doped up under guise of a 
cure.” 

“What?” he asked, startled. “She’s getting the 
stuff now?” 

“No, I didn’t say she was getting opium, or from 
anyone here. All the same, if you would just keep 
an ear open ” 

“It’s unprofessional, but — you’d not ask it with- 
out a good reason. I’ll try.” 

It was very late when we got back to the city and 
we dined at an uptown restaurant which we had al- 
most to ourselves. 

Kennedy had placed the little whitish tablets in a 
small paper packet for safe keeping. As we waited 
for our order he drew one from his pocket, and 
after looking at it a moment crushed it to a powder 
in the paper. 

“What is it?” I asked curiously. “Cocaine?” 

“No,” he said, shaking his head doubtfully. 

He had tried to dissolve a little of the powder in 
some water from the glass before him, but it would 
not dissolve. 

As he continued to look at it his eye fell on the cut- 
glass vinegar cruet before us. It was full of the 
white vinegar. 

“Really acetic acid,” he remarked, pouring out a 
little. 

The white powder dissolved. 

For several minutes he continued looking at the 
stuff. 

“That, I think,” he remarked finally, “is heroin.” 


THE PSYCHANALYSIS 365 

“More ‘happy dust’?” I replied with added in- 
terest now, thinking of our previous case. “Is the 
habit so extensive?” 

“Yes,” he replied, “the habit is comparatively 
new, although in Paris, I believe, they call the drug 
fiends, ‘heroinomaniacs.’ It is, as I told you before, 
a derivative of morphine. Its scientific name is 
diacetyl-morphin. It is New York’s newest peril, 
one of the most dangerous drugs yet. Thousands 
are slaves to it, although its sale is supposedly re- 
stricted. It is rotting the heart out of the Tender- 
loin. Did you notice Veronica Haversham’s yellow- 
ish whiteness, her down-drawn mouth, elevated eye- 
brows, and contracted eyes? She may have taken it 
up to escape other drugs. Some people have — and 
have just got a new habit. It can be taken hypoderm- 
ically, or in a tablet, or by powdering the tablet to 
a white crystalline powder and snuffing up the nose. 
That’s the way she takes it. It produces rhinitis of 
the nasal passages, which I see you observed, but 
did not understand. It has a more profound effect 
than morphine, and is ten times as powerful as 
codeine. And one of the worst features is that so 
many people start with it, thinking it is as harmless 
as it has been advertised. I wouldn’t be surprised if 
she used from seventy-five to a hundred one-twelfth 
grain tablets a day. Some of them do, you know.” 

“And Dr. Maudsley,” I asked quickly, “do you 
think it is through him or in spite of him?” 

“That’s what I’d like to know. About those 
words,” he continued, “what did you make of the 
list and the answers?” 

I had made nothing and said so, rather quickly. 

“Those,” he explained, “were words selected and 
arranged to strike almost all the common complexes 


366 THE WAR TERROR 

in analyzing and diagnosing. You’d think any in- 
telligent person could give a fluent answer to them, 
perhaps a misleading answer. But try it yourself, 
Walter. You’ll find you can’t. You may start all 
right, but not all the words will be reacted to in the 
same time or with the same smoothness and ease. 
Yet, like the expressions of a dream, they often 
seem senseless. But they have a meaning as soon 
as they are ‘psychanalyzed.’ All the mistakes in an- 
swering the second time, for example, have a rea- 
son, if we can only get at it. They are not arbi- 
trary answers, but betray the inmost subconscious 
thoughts, those things marked, split off from con- 
sciousness and repressed into the unconscious. As- 
sociations, like dreams, never lie. You may try to 
conceal the emotions and unconscious actions, but 
you can’t.” 

I listened, fascinated by Kennedy’s explanation. 

“Anyone can see that that woman has something 
on her mind besides the heroin habit. It may be 
that she is trying to shake the habit off in order to 
do it; it may be that she seeks relief from her 
thoughts by refuge in the habit; and it may be that 
some one has purposely caused her to contract this 
new habit in the guise of throwing off an old. The 
only way by which to find out is to study the 
case.” 

He paused. He had me keenly on edge, but I 
knew that he was not yet in a position to answer his 
queries positively. 

“Now I found,” he went on, “that the religious 
complexes were extremely few; as I expected the 
erotic were many. If you will look over the three 
lists you will find something queer about every such 
word as, ‘child,’ ‘to marry,’ ‘bride,’ ‘to lie,’ ‘stork,’ 


THE PSYCHANALYSIS 367 

and so on. We’re on the right track. That woman 
does know something about that child.” 

“My eye catches the words ‘to sin,’ ‘to fall/ 
‘pure,’ and others,” I remarked, glancing over the 
list. 

“Yes, there’s something there, too. I got the hint 
for the drug from her hesitation over ‘needle’ and 
‘white.’ But the main complex has to do with words 
relating to that child and to love. In short, I think 
we are going to find it to be the reverse of the rule 
of the French, that it will be a case of ‘cherchez 
l’homme.’ ” 

Early the next day Kennedy, after a night of 
studying over the case, journeyed up to the sani- 
tarium again. We found Dr. Klemm eager to meet 
us. 

“What is it?” asked Kennedy, equally eager. 

“I overheard some surprising things over the vo- 
caphone,” he hastened. “Hazleton called. Why, 
there must have been some wild orgies in that 
precious set of theirs, and, would you believe it, 
many of them seem to have been at what Dr. Mauds- 
ley calls his ‘stable studio,’ a den he has fixed up 
artistically over his garage on a side street.” 

“Indeed?” 

“I couldn’t get it all, but I did hear her repeating 
over and over to Hazleton, ‘Aren’t you all mine? 
Aren’t you all mine?’ There must be some vague 
jealousy lurking in the heart of that ardent woman. 
I can’t figure it out.” 

“I’d like to see her again,” remarked Kennedy. 
“Will you ask her if I may?” 


CHAPTER XXXVI 


THE ENDS OF JUSTICE 

A few minutes later we were in the sitting room 
of her suite. She received us rather ungraciously, I 
thought. 

“Do you feel any better ?” asked Kennedy. 

“No,” she replied curtly. “Excuse me for a mo- 
ment. I wish to see that maid of mine. Clarisse!” 

She had hardly left the room when Kennedy was 
on his feet. The bottle of white tablets, nearly 
empty, was still on the table. I saw him take some 
very fine white powder and dust it quickly over the 
bottle. It seemed to adhere, and from his pocket he 
quickly drew a piece of what seemed to be specially 
prepared paper, laid it over the bottle where the 
powder adhered, fitting it over the curves. He 
withdrew it quickly, for outside we heard her light 
step, returning. I am sure she either saw or sus- 
pected that Kennedy had been touching the bottle of 
tablets, for there was a look of startled fear on her 
face. 

“Then you do not feel like continuing the tests 
we abandoned last night?” asked Kennedy, ap- 
parently not noticing her look. 

“No, I do not,” she almost snapped. “You — 
you are detectives. Mrs. Hazleton has sent you.” 

“Indeed, Mrs. Hazleton has not sent us,” in- 

368 


THE ENDS OF JUSTICE 369 

sisted Kennedy, never for an instant showing his sur- 
prise at her mention of the name. 

“You are. You can tell her, you can tell every- 
body. I’ll tell — I’ll tell myself. I won’t wait. That 
child is mine — mine — not hers. Now — go!” 

Veronica Haversham on the stage never towered 
in a fit of passion as she did now in real life, as her 
ungovernable feelings broke forth tempestuously 
on us. 

I was astounded, bewildered at the revelation, the 
possibilities in those simple words, “The child is 
mine.” For a moment I was stunned. Then as the 
full meaning dawned on me I wondered in a flood of 
consciousness whether it was true. Was it the 
product of her drug-disordered brain? Had her 
desperate love for Hazleton produced a hallucina- 
tion? 

Kennedy, silent, saw that the case demanded quick 
action. I shall never forget the breathless ride down 
from the sanitarium to the Hazleton house on River- 
side Drive. 

“Mrs. Hazleton,” he cried, as we hurried in, “you 
will pardon me for this unceremonious intrusion, but 
it is most important. May I trouble you to place 
your fingers on this paper — so?” 

He held out to her a piece of the prepared paper. 
She looked at him once, then saw from his face that 
he was not to be questioned. Almost tremulously 
she did as he said, saying not a word. I wondered 
whether she knew the story of Veronica, or whether 
so far only hints of it had been brought to her. 

“Thank you,” he said quickly. “Now, if I may 
see Morton?” 

It was the first time we had seen the baby about 
whom the rapidly thickening events were crowding. 


370 THE WAR TERROR 

He was a perfect specimen of well-cared-for, scien- 
tific infant. 

Kennedy took the little chubby fingers playfully 
in his own. He seemed at once to win the child’s 
confidence, though he may have violated scientific 
rules. One by one he pressed the little fingers on 
the paper, until little Morton crowed with delight 
as one little piggy after another “went to market.” 
He had deserted thousands of dollars’ worth of 
toys just to play with the simple piece of paper Ken- 
nedy had brought with him. As I looked at him, 
I thought of what Kennedy had said at the start. 
Perhaps this innocent child was not to be envied 
after all. I could hardly restrain my excitement 
over the astounding situation which had suddenly 
developed. 

“That will do,” announced Kennedy finally, care- 
lessly folding up the paper and slipping it into his 
pocket. “You must excuse me now.” 

“You see,” he explained on the way to the labora- 
tory, “that powder adheres to fresh finger prints, 
taking all the gradations. Then the paper with its 
paraffine and glycerine coating takes off the pow- 
der.” 

In the laboratory he buried himself in work, with 
microscope compasses, calipers, while I fumed im- 
potently at the window. 

“Walter,” he called suddenly, “get Dr. Maudsley 
on the telephone. Tell him to come immediately to 
the laboratory.” 

Meanwhile Kennedy was busy arranging what he 
had discovered in logical order and putting on it the 
finishing touches. 

As Dr. Maudsley entered Kennedy greeted him 
and began by plunging directly into the case in an- 


THE ENDS OF JUSTICE 371 

swer to his rather discourteous inquiry as to why 
he had been so hastily summoned. 

“Dr. Maudsley,” said Craig, “I have asked you 
to call alone because, while I am on the verge of dis- 
covering the truth in an important case affecting 
Morton Hazleton and his wife, I am frankly per- 
plexed as to how to go ahead.” 

The doctor seemed to shake with excitement as 
Kennedy proceeded. 

“Dr. Maudsley,” Craig added, dropping his 
voice, “is Morton III the son of Millicent Hazleton 
or not? You were the physician in attendance on 
her at the birth. Is he?” 

Maudsley had been watching Kennedy furtively 
at first, but as he rapped out the words I thought 
the doctor’s eyes would pop out of his head. 
Perspiration in great beads collected on his face. 

“P-professor K-Kennedy,” he muttered, franti- 
cally rubbing his face and lower jaw as if to com- 
pose the agitation he could so ill conceal, “let me 
explain.” 

“Yes, yes — go on,” urged Kennedy. 

“Mrs. Hazleton’s baby was born — dead. I knew 
how much she and the rest of the family had longed 
for an heir, how much it meant. And I — substituted 
for the dead child a newborn baby from the ma- 
ternity hospital. It — it belonged to Veronica Haver- 
sham — then a poor chorus girl. I did not intend 
that she should ever know it. I intended that she 
should think her baby was dead. But in some way 
she found out. Since then she has become a famous 
beauty, has numbered among her friends even 
Hazleton himself. For nearly two years I have 
tried to keep her from divulging the secret. From 
time to time hints of it have leaked out. I knew 


372 THE WAR TERROR 

that if Hazleton with his infatuation of her were 
to learn ” 

“And Mrs. Hazleton, has she been told?” inter- 
rupted Kennedy. 

“I have been trying to keep it from her as long as 
I can, but it has been difficult to keep Veronica from 
telling it. Hazleton himself was so wild over her. 
And she wanted her son as she ” 

“Maudsley,” snapped out Kennedy, slapping 
down on the table the mass of prints and charts 
which he had hurriedly collected and was studying, 
“you lie ! Morton is Millicent Hazleton’s son. The 
whole story is blackmail. I knew it when she told 
me of her dreams and I suspected first some such 
devilish scheme as yours. Now I know it scientifi- 
cally.” 

He turned over the prints. 

“I suppose that study of these prints, Maudsley, 
will convey nothing to you. I know that it is usu- 
ally stated that there are no two sets of finger prints 
in the world that are identical or that can be con- 
fused. Still, there are certain similarities of finger 
prints and other characteristics, and these similari- 
ties have recently been exhaustively studied by Ber- 
tillon, who has found that there are clear relation- 
ships sometimes between mother and child in these 
respects. If Solomon were alive, doctor, he would 
not now have to resort to the expedient to which he 
did when the two women disputed over the right to 
the living child. Modern science is now deciding by 
exact laboratory methods the same problem as he 
solved by his unique knowledge of feminine psychol- 
ogy* 

“I saw how this case was tending. Not a moment 
too soon, I said to myself, ‘The hand of the child 


THE ENDS OF JUSTICE 373 

will tell.’ By the very variations in unlike things, 
such as finger and palm prints, as tabulated and ar- 
ranged by Bertillon after study in thousands of cases, 
by the very loops, whorls, arches and composites, I 
have proved my case. 

“The dominancy, not the identity, of heredity 
through the infinite varieties of finger markings is 
sometimes very striking. Unique patterns in a 
parent have been repeated with marvelous accuracy 
in the child. I knew that negative results might 
prove nothing in regard to parentage, a caution 
which it is important to observe. But I was pre- 
pared to meet even that. 

“I would have gone on into other studies, such 
as Tammasia’s, of heredity in the veining of the 
back of the hands; I would have measured the 
hands, compared the relative proportion of the 
parts; I would have studied them under the X-ray 
as they are being studied to-day; I would have tried 
the Reichert blood crystal test which is being per- 
fected now so that it will tell heredity itself. There 
is no scientific stone I would have left unturned until 
I had delved at the truth of this riddle. Fortunately 
it was not necessary. Simple finger prints have told 
me enough. And best of all, it has been in time to 
frustrate that devilish scheme you and Veronica 
Haversham have been slowly unfolding.” 

Maudsley crumpled up, as it were, at Kennedy’s 
denunciation. He seemed to shrink toward the door. 

“Yes,” cried Kennedy, with extended forefinger, 
“you may go — for the present. Don’t try to run 
away. You’re watched from this moment on.” 

Maudsley had retreated precipitately. 

I looked at Kennedy inquiringly. What to do? 
It was indeed a delicate situation, requiring the ut- 


374 THE WAR TERROR 

most care to handle. If the story had been told to 
Hazleton, what might he not have already done? 
He must be found first of all if we were to meet the 
conspiracy of these two. 

Kennedy reached quickly for the telephone. 
“There is one stream of scandal that can be dammed 
at its source/’ he remarked, calling a number. 
“Hello. Klemm’s Sanitarium? I’d like to speak 
with Miss Haversham. What — gone? Disap- 
peared? Escaped?” 

He hung up the receiver and looked at me blankly. 
I was speechless. 

A thousand ideas flew through our minds at once. 
Had she perceived the import of our last visit and 
was she now on her way to complete her plotted 
slander of Millicent Hazleton, though it pulled 
down on herself in the end the whole structure? 

Hastily Kennedy called Hazleton’s home, But- 
ler, and one after another of Hazleton’s favorite 
clubs. It was not until noon that Butler himself 
found him and came with him, under protest, to 
the laboratory. 

“What is it — what have you found?” cried But- 
ler, his lean form a-quiver with suppressed excite- 
ment. 

Briefly, one fact after another, sparing Hazleton 
nothing, Kennedy poured forth the story, how by hint 
and innuendo Maudsley had been working on Milli- 
cent, undermining her, little knowing that he had at- 
tacked in her a very tower of strength, how Veron- 
ica, infatuated by him, had infatuated him, had led 
him on step by step. 

Pale and agitated, with nerves unstrung by the 
life he had been leading, Hazleton listened. And as 
Kennedy hammered one fact after another home, he 


THE ENDS OF JUSTICE 375 

clenched his fists until the nails dug into his very 
palms. 

“The scoundrels,” he ground out, as Kennedy fin- 
ished by painting the picture of the brave little 
broken-hearted woman fighting off she knew not 
what, and the golden-haired, innocent baby stretch- 
ing out his arms in glee at the very chance to prove 
that he was what he was. “The scoundrels — take 
me to Maudsley now. I must see Maudsley. 
Quick!” 

As we pulled up before the door of the recon- 
structed stable-studio, Kennedy jumped out. The 
door was unlocked. Up the broad flight of stairs, 
Hazleton went two at a time. We followed him 
closely. 

Lying on the divan in the room that had been the 
scene of so many orgies, locked in each other’s arms, 
were two figures — Veronica Haversham and Dr. 
Maudsley. 

She must have gone there directly after our visit 
to Dr. Klemm’s, must have been waiting for him 
when he returned with his story of the exposure to 
answer her fears of us as Mrs. Hazleton’s detec- 
tives. In a frenzy of intoxication she must have 
flung her arms blindly about him in a last wild em- 
brace. 

Hazleton looked, aghast. 

He leaned over and took her arm. Before he 
could frame the name, “Veronica!” he had recoiled. 

The two were cold and rigid. 

“An overdose of heroin this time,” muttered Ken- 
nedy. 

My head was in a whirl. 

Hazleton stared blankly at the two figures ab- 
jectly lying before him, as the truth burned itself 


».* ' 

376 THE WAR TERROR 

indelibly into his soul. He covered his face with 
his hands. And still he saw it all. \ 

Craig said nothing. He was content to let what 
he had shown work in the man’s mind. 

“For the sake of — that baby — would she — would 
she forgive?” asked Hazleton, turning desperately 
toward Kennedy. 

Deliberately Kennedy faced him, not as scientist 
and millionaire, but as man and man. 

“From my psychanalysis,” he said slowly, “I 
should say that it is within your power, in time, to 
change those dreams.” 

Hazleton grasped Kennedy’s hand before he 
knew it. 

“Kennedy — home — quick. This is the first mam 
ful impulse I have had for two years. And, 
Jameson — you’ll tone down that part of it in the 
newspapers that Junior — might read — when he 
grows up?” 


THE END 





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